TMC advises Trivedi against speaking on Narada sting

NEW DELHI: West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee has gone into a damage-control mode over the Narada sting operation on some Trinamool Congress MPs after senior party member and former Union minister Dinesh Trivedi publicly spoke out on the bribery scandal that has hit the ruling party in the poll season.

At a CII function on Friday, Trivedi said Trinamool MPs purportedly seen accepting money from a fictitious company in a sting operation should “sit at home till the time they come out clean“ from charges levelled against them. His outburst is the first on the sting by a TMC member on a public platform since it was aired by a news portal.

On Saturday, senior TMC member Mukul Roy called Trivedi in Delhi, purportedly on behalf of Banerjee, following his comments and asked him not to say anything further on the issue publicly, it is learnt.

Unusually, instead of reprimanding Trivedi, which may have been the more likely reaction in earlier days, the party brass simply asked him to restrain himself from speaking out on the issue. That clearly shows how the TMC leadership is keen to “control the damage“ done by the Narada sting in tarnishing the image of the party, rather than taking action on party members for speaking out against the party.

The same Trivedi was sacked from his railway minister's post by Banerjee during the UPA-II regime, within hours of hiking fares in the railway budget without the consent of the TMC chief. Trivedi was one of the first rebels in the party after the Narada scandal broke out earlier during the Budget session of Parliament.

He, along with a couple of other TMC MPs, had spoken out at a closed door meeting of party MPs in Delhi the very next day , saying what had happened (Narada revelations) should be probed. The day after, both Trivedi and TMC MP Sugata Bose disobeyed party orders and stayed away from a protest at the Gandhi statue agitation at Parliament House against the government.