After polls, it's legal tussle ahead of TMC

Trapped and trounced. That's what seem to be the feelings and understandings even within the Trinamul Congress camp, after their party heavy weights - ministers and formers- were sent to judicial custody by the Kolkata High Court, even after being granted interim bail by the lower court. Even as the legal battle continues to get them released on bail and foil CBI's move to shift the Narada sting operation case outside the state, the common feelings within the TMC camp is that they were actually trapped and trounced- albeit temporarily. They are obviously referring to the way things played out following the sudden arrests of two of their current ministers- Subrata Mukherjee, Firhad (Bobby) Hakim (Hakim is also the chairman of the board of administration of Kolkata Municipal Corporation, effectively the city Mayor), former state minister and MLA, Madan Mitra and former state minister and former city mayor- Sovan Chattopadhyay. Soon after the arrests, TMC supremo and Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee rushed to CBI office at Nizam Palace and stayed there for six hours, initially demanding that she should also be arrested, then thousands of party activists and supporters hit the street and went amok in front of Nizam Palace and in front of Raj Bhawan (Governor's House), and then half a dozen ministers including the state law minister went to the court and were present during the hearing (although it was a virtual hearing). All these helped CBI build up the case and drive home the point that these persons were indeed 'influential.'

The uncalled for and untoward incidents came in handy to the Saffron Brigade as well for building up case in favour of imposition of Article 356 on ground of lawless ness. Saffron topnotch was in two minds over imposing President's Rule in the state before the polls, because they thought that might have gone wrong and might have sent wrong signals to the electorate. But now that the polls are over and the party has faced poll debacle, this is possibly the only way to wrest power in the state, if they are not wait for five long years, honoring the popular mandate. The Saffron strategists also possibly thought that the arrests of such prominent ministers and key functionaries would also help the party reaping political benefits by way of a disruption in corona combating and vaccination drives, and divert attention of the people away from the palpable and utter failure of the BJP-led central government on these counts. Mind you that Firhad Hakim is the in-change of these initiatives and Subrata Mukherjee, being the state Panchayat minister, was looking after these exercises in rural Bengal. The TMC leaders were prompt in realizing all these and asking party workers to keep their calm and compose and restore peace. But by then, the damage had possibly been done and the moments violent protests were frozen and captured to be produced in the court. The BJP has done whatever it could do- by turning and projecting the spontaneous outburst and outrage of emotional TMC workers as complete collapse of law and order in the state. And they did it with a clinical precision.

The TMC leadership should have been more cautious, particular and far-sighted. Now it's upto the legal brains of the party to salvage the immediate crisis and leave it on to the political leadership to carry out the damage control exercise.