Kolkata: Prime Minister
Narendra Modi's
Narada tirade has pushed the ruling Trinamool Congress into a tight corner. With the rank and file clearly divided on the issue, the ruling party is still hunting for a clear strategy to counter the Narada fallout. Evidently, Modi's belligerence was met with some uncharacteristic silence from the Trinamool ranks on Sunday.
Two Trinamool leaders,
Dinesh Trivedi
and
Saugata Roy
, have already spoken out against the Narada tapes. While Trivedi said that had he been the party president, he would have asked the leaders in question to "sit at home" till they "come out clean", Roy admitted to being "ashamed" over his name getting involved in the row.
Speaking in Purulia's Bagmundi on Sunday, chief minister Mamata Banerjee only said that Trinamool's courtesy shouldn't be taken as a sign of weakness. A couple of hours before the Prime Minister's speech, party national spokesperson Derek O' Brien claimed, "The Bengal poll narrative is only peace, progress, prosperity and harmony. The rest are all distractions." Even the party's Lok Sabha leader, MP Sudip Bandopadhyay, shied away from a direct reply. Saying that Sitaram, Sonia and Modi should all sit in the same bench in Bengal, he controlled himself and said, "The language in which he attacked...we will reply to it in Lok Sabha. The party whose national president had been indicted for taking cash on camera is blaming us for Narada."
Two years back, when Prime Minister Narendra Modi had raised the Saradha issue, Trinamool had fought back the accusations battling on multiple points. The state-constituted special investigation team (SIT) had also hunted down the main accused, Sudipta Sen, from his Kashmir hideout. However, in the Narada
sting operation case, Trinamool had been trying to shield itself behind the Lok Sabha Ethics Committee probe and the cases being heard on it by Calcutta high court.
Worse still, while the party doesn't want its leaders to step beyond the stated party line in Saradha, its legal strategy to segregate donations from bribe is only befuddling the party rank and file. The donation-versus-bribe theory was first suggested by party MP Aparupa Poddar (indicted in the sting operation), and later resonated by party MP Kalyan Banerjee and state law minister Chandrima Bhattacharya.
Drawing a contrast with the BJP-led NDA government at the Centre, Modi said, "I am in power in Delhi for almost two years. But has there been even one spot on us? Has there been even one rupee of graft?" He asserted that he would prefer to go hungry than "steal from the people's pockets".
Modi's tough-talking on Narada, however, failed to impress Surjya Kanta Mishra, the assembly opposition leader. "What is stopping the PM (or his party) to send the Narada case to the Rajya Sabha Ethics Committee? The PM's party is trying to shield Trinamool. The Modi-Mamata understanding is evident and clear," he said.