Why ex-minister Indranil Sen's arrest mounts pressure on Mamata's TMC camp

Former Minister of State (MoS) for Tourism, Indranil Sen, was remanded on Thursday to police custody till November 10.

Sen was arrested by the Detective Department (DD) of Kolkata Police on Wednesday after he stepped out of the Enforcement Directorate (ED) office after four hours of questioning. He is accused of misappropriating funds to the tune of several lakhs in the sale of inflated Durga Puja tickets to exclusively witness 24 pandals under the banner of his wife Madhuchhanda’s company MassART.

The company inflated their ticket rates—ranging from ₹4000-₹12,000—because it claimed to have a UNESCO tie-up, for which it even used the UNESCO logo. The tie-up claims were later found to be false and a complaint was filed by travel consultant Jaydeep Mukherjee in June. However Sen and his wife have denied the allegations. In September, the ED had also conducted raids at 15 locations associated with Sen.

Since the BJP came into power in the state, several Trinamool Congress (TMC) ministers, leaders and councillors have been arrested in various cases.

The first to be arrested was former Fire and Emergency Services Minister Sujit Bose on May 11, in connection with a municipal corporation recruitment scam.

Bose was arrested by the ED Kolkata Zonal office under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA). A close confidant of Mamata Banerjee, Bose had organised one of the biggest Durga Puja pandals in the city Sreebhumi.

After Bose, Jahangir Khan, the Falta Assembly election TMC candidate was arrested on June 8 near the India-Nepal border. Khan was wanted for several extortion and electoral malpractices. Repolling took place on May 23 in Falta at 285 polling stations where Khan withdrew his nomination at the last moment, praising a special development package announced by Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari. The BJP candidate Debangshu Panda won the elections.

Former North Bengal Development Minister Udayan Guha was arrested on June 17 by the Cooch Behar Police in the Phoolbagan area in Kolkata. Charges against Guha amount to cut money and extortion from local residents on various occasions. Two days later, former Tarakeshwar MLA Ramendu Singharoy was arrested in Karnataka while trying to flee. Singharoy was arrested on charges of corruption and theft of government relief material.

Former TMC MLA Saokat Molla came next. He was accused of being the main conspirator in making crude bombs ahead of the Assembly elections last May. A crude bomb blast had killed one and injured three on March 19, prompting the National Investigation Agency (NIA) to probe the case and arrest Mollah on June 5. Mollah was also accused of tampering with evidence.

Former Bidhan Nagar Municipal Corporation (BMC) Mayor Sabyasachi Dutta was arrested in the same week—on June 8—by the Bidhan Nagar North Police on charges of extortion, criminal intimidation and threats to life.

Other names close to the erstwhile ruling TMC establishment include Abhishek Banerjee’s PA Sumit Roy, Kailash Mishra, Arijit Das Thakur, former Bishnupur MLA Dilip Mondol and former sports Minister Aroop Biswas’ brother Swarup Biswas for extortion in the Bengali film and television industry.

The BJP government’s crackdown on complaints against former TMC leaders has not stopped, with Sen being the latest arrest.

Pressure mounts on the Mamata Banerjee-led TMC, that is already outnumbered since the exodus of rebel MLAs to create the Democratic Trinamool Congress (DTC) faction and rebel MPs merging with the Nationalist Citizens Party of India (NCPI), which supports the NDA.