TMC leaders' arrest in Narada scam will sting Modi more than Mamata
The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) is about to arrest and interrogate a record number of Trinamool Congress MPs and West Bengal ministers in the Narada scam. And the arrests will inevitably generate screaming headlines in newspapers and raucous debates in television studios.
While the heavyweights on the CBI's hit list are brainstorming with top criminal lawyers and instructing their wives and children on how to manage their empires after they are rounded up, the opposition - particularly the Bharatiya Janata Party - is smacking its lips at the thought of Trinamool leaders being humiliated before rotting in jail.
To be sure, the Narada corruption case will go down in legal history for arraigning the highest number of alleged culprits from a single political party.
But, equally significantly, it will have no impact whatsoever on the Trinamool Congress's immediate, medium or long term prospects, or the standing of its supremo, Mamata Banerjee, who is fighting a running battle with Narendra Modi, no less, giving as good as she gets.
Unlike the Saradha and Rose Valley chit-fund cases, the Narada scam hasn't robbed a single ordinary citizen of a single rupee.
So "public interest" or the "common good" is not at stake. In the Narada videos, Trinamool bosses and a senior police officer known for his proximity to Trinamool, are seen accepting Rs 1-5 lakh from a journalist posing as an investor, which has nothing to do with the man on the street. So he is not bothered!
In fact, Banerjee reaped a lot of goodwill by quickly raising Rs 500 crore by seizing and selling Saradha's assets to repay depositors defrauded by Saradha.
The timely measure in 2013, two years after Trinamool first came to power in West Bengal defeating the Left Front, earned Banerjee the gratitude of duped ordinary and small investors who fully backed the Trinamool in the 2014 parliamentary polls and the 2016 state elections.
In contrast, all that the CBI and Enforcement Directorate unleashed by the Modi government post May 2014 did was make arrests which did not in any way benefit the poor who lost their lives' savings when Saradha went bust.
So the victims value Banerjee's intervention and not Modi's, regardless of the complicity of quite a few Trinamool leaders in the fraud perpetrated by Saradha.
Just like my esteemed readers, I do not condone corruption.
Corruption must be curbed and the corrupt punished. But alas, it's not a perfect world; its ways are strange! And, as a journalist, I am duty-bound to record the contradictions and complexities of corruption, which come to the aid of politicians and political parties.
I think that arrests in the Narada case, which are now inevitable, will prove to be a boon for the Trinamool Congress as a whole and to Banerjee in particular.
The arrests will fan anti-Modi and anti-BJP sentiments across West Bengal to the great advantage of the Trinamool Congress.
The man on the street - who is in no way affected by footage of Trinamool leaders like Saugato Roy or Sultan Ahmed accepting wads of currency notes from an "investor" in the Narada sting operation - is bound to get angry with Modi for compelling Banerjee to lock horns with the CBI instead of devoting all her energy to the state's development for the common good.
As it is, Banerjee is regarded as a doer who is always on the move from one backward region like Jungle Mahal to the Dooars. She is no shirker or dreamer but a woman of action.
Once a Maoist stronghold, Jungle Mahal has developed more in the last six years than since 1947. So, if any leader in Delhi, or an enforcement agency at that leader's beck and call, is seen throwing a spanner in Banerjee's works, common people are bound to rally around her.
So, frankly, BJP has no reasons to rejoice or celebrate when the CBI starts arresting Trinamool Congress bigwigs in the Narada case.
It's actually introspection time for Modi's party in West Bengal. The sharp rise in he BJP's vote-bank in a by-poll in one Assembly seat - Kanthi Dakshin - doesn't give it the licence to go on the rampage in Birbhum or post fake videos on social media to spark off riots.
The BJP's increasing association with violence - whether it is the Ram Navami processions with swords and Trishuls, the post Kanthi Dakshin bombings in Birbhum or BJP state president Dilip Ghosh's threats to assault his political opponents - is not going down well in West Bengal.
A key reason for the downfall of communists was the reliance on terror tactics by the ruling reds which infuriated and antagonised the common man in rural and urban areas alike.
The BJP is going down the same road before it has even become the principle opposition! The party shouldn't forget it has only three MLAs in a House of 294.
As things stand, the BJP stands to gain nothing from the arrests in the Narada case. On the contrary, the BJP stands to lose as Trinamool Congress supporters, who heavily outnumber BJP supporters anyway, are bound to rise to the party's defence.
Like law, politics will take its own course.