Fall of Saradha Group: Trinamool may face huge political crisis ahead

One morning, Bengali viewers tuning in to Tara Muzik saw their favourite performers, anchors and the entire crew of the channel shedding copious tears on air. This was no staged event: they had just been told that they didn’t have a job any more and the channel would shut down.

This was only one casualty of the collapse of the Saradha Group, whose main business was to dupe poor, uninformed people of their life’s savings by promising huge returns. Saradha is not alone.

Dozens of such funds have sprouted across Bengal. Most will go bust. And all flourished under the benign patronage of their Didi, Bengal’s chief minister Mamata Banerjee.

Saradha’s owner, Sudipta Sen, is on the run. He was close to the Trinamool and Kunal Ghosh, who headed his media businesses, is a Trinamool Rajya Sabha MP. Indeed, all chit funds have sprouted media outfits to heap gushing praise on Didi and her party. When the going was good, this suited everyone: the funds were sheltered by political masters who, in turn, got good press.

Now, Didi has woken up to the unusual spectacle of thousands of Saradha agents barricading her home in Kolkata, demanding succour that her bankrupt government cannot afford. Someone should have reminded Didi that nothing good comes of hobnobbing with folks who run “cheat” funds.