Mamata timed the flashpoint on the eve of the polls on an issue relating to the police commissioner possibly to consolidate the police force that will be placed under the EC in a month or so.
Mamata had taken a similar tactic in 2014 when she announced she would jail Narendra Modi by tying a rope to his waist, sending out signals that only she had the guts to fight BJP.
KOLKATA: The high-pitch drama in front of city police chief’s Loudon Street residence on Sunday evening became talk of the town on Monday with people seeing the CBI-Kolkata Police standoff as a usual prelude to the Lok Sabha polls. What has caught people’s attention is the CM’s reaching out to Rajeev Kumar at his residence to give him protection from CBI when she didn’t do the same for her political colleagues.
Mamata has an answer to offer. “Earlier, the CBI arrested a number of our party leaders. But I hadn’t come out on the road. This time they disrespected the chair of the Kolkata Police chief by reaching his house on a Sunday evening without any warrant or document. Rajeev Kumar is the leader of the police force. Even as Rajeev and Surajit (state security adviser Surajit Kar Purkayastha) wanted me to stay back, I went to his house and decided to sit for the demonstration. I am fighting for the police force and for its dignity,” the CM said after concluding the police investiture ceremony at a makeshift stage beside the main demonstration dais.
However, BJP leaders lashed out at the “over-protective” CM. “This is not a Centre-state standoff. The constitutional mechanism in the state has collapsed. Police officers in the rank of DG, ADG and commissioners are sitting at a dharna in plainclothes. Ye sab hai raazdar ko bachane ke liye (These are to protect the ones privy to information). The man who knows too much and the man who has all the secrets of chit fund scams. Mamata Banerjee didn’t go for a dharna when her party MPs were arrested,” said Union minister Prakash Javadekar.
The BJP argument leads one to question: if the Kolkata police commissioner probing Ponzi scams is privy to more information than Trinamool-turned-BJP leader Mukul Roy, who was once number 2 in Trinamool.
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The timeline of the arrests or summons to Trinamool leaders accused in the scam reveal a pattern that they all happened before or after the 2014 Lok Sabha polls or after the 2016 assembly polls in the run-up to the 2019 Lok Sabha polls. A purported telephonic talk between two BJP leaders leaked months ago hinted at action against two IPS officers, without naming them.
Reading the pattern in her own way, Mamata has been carefully stepping up the ante against the Centre on a range of issues, from central schemes to Army deployment at Bengal toll plazas, and from deployment of central forces to “misusing” central agencies against opposition leaders. She timed the flashpoint on the eve of the polls on an issue relating to the police commissioner possibly to consolidate the police force that will be placed under the Election Commission in a month or so.
At the same time, the chief minister played the gamble on an apparently administrative issue to break the present political paradigm in the state and polarise the electorate on this issue when BJP is gaining ground in Bengal. She had taken a similar tactic in 2014 when she announced she would jail Narendra Modi by tying a rope to his waist, sending out signals that only she had the guts to fight BJP.
Whether such a gamble will click this time depends on the Supreme Court order and the people of the state.
Mamata Banerjee camp steps up attack on rebel leader Ritabrata Banerjee, seeks action over woman's complaints2026-06-23T19:13:02Z
