Amit Mitra faces flak over West Bengal's notorious syndicate raj

KOLKATA: The recent controversy over some “syndicate” members threatening Trinamool MP and Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose's grand-nephew Sugata Bose seems to be keeping Mamata Banerjee's close lieutenants on the edge ever since.

On Tuesday, the state finance minister Amit Mitra had to defend the state administration when veteran industrialist SK Birla expressed concerns over this issue at a Ficci event on banking.

"The syndicate is creating a sense of fear psychosis in the minds of investors," the chairman emeritus of Birla Group said.

‘Syndicate’ is a racket that runs in areas where real estate is flourishing and force contractors into buying building materials from unemployed men at a premium.

The controversy surfaced again last week when some syndicate members had threatened Sugata Bose's mother Krishna Bose, also a former MP, for not buying materials from them as Bose's ancestral house at 90 Sarat Bose Road in South Kolkata which is under renovation.

The issue became viral immediately in the social media with people start questioning the fact that if an MP is subjected to such harassment, where does common people stand.

Mitra defended SK Birla's concern by saying that syndicate is the legacy of the past regime and the current state government is trying to create jobs to address this issue.

“Syndicate has a history much before we came to power. It's a social issue as we had inherited one lakh unemployed youth from the past. Our Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee is addressing the issue by job creation and has taken a no tolerance policy on this,” Mitra said.

Mitra, incidentally, is also a grandson of Subhas Chandra Bose from his mother's side. His maternal grandfather was Suresh Chandra Bose, elder brother of Netaji.