Saradha, Narada barbs fall flat as TMC wins

Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s comments that the multi-crore Saradha scam and the sting operation by Narada news involving some Trinamool Congress leaders contesting the elections had no impact on the election result, was evident when all the allegedly accused leaders won the election by handsome margins.

These two issues had become the main thrust areas of the campaigning for the Opposition parties in the Assembly election. All the Opposition parties had been very vocal against corruption, especially after some Trinamool Congress leaders were caught on camera taking money, the authenticity of which are yet to be verified. But all the allegations that were brought against the ruling party and Trinamool Congress were summarily rejected by the people of the state who have given their mandate in favour of the Trinamool Congress.

It was undeniably true that massive development works has taken place throughout the state in the last five years. Sensing that it would never be easy to fight a political battle with Trinamool Congress, all the Opposition parties started spreading canards against Mamata Banerjee and her party. The Opposition parties had attacked Banerjee through unfair means and blamed Banerjee, whose honesty and integrity are beyond anybody’s doubt for failing to control the corruption of her Cabinet colleagues. Knowing well about their own organisational crisis, the Left and Congress party leaders, during their campaign mainly focused on the corruption issues. They had forgotten that people of West Bengal were not ready to accept the allegations when they have seen that how various development works initiated by the TMC government had helped all sections of society in the last five years.

In the Narada sting operation TMC heavyweight candidates Subrata Mukherjee, Firhad Hakim, Suvendu Adhikari, Sovan Chatterjee who were shown in the Narada video taking money have come out victorious by a fair margin. Adhikari has won from Nandigram Assembly constituency by a margin of more than 81,000 votes while Hakim has won by a margin of more than 26,000 votes from Kolkata Port Assembly constituency. Mukherjee has won by more than 15,000 votes from Ballygunge and Chatterjee by over 24,000. Chatterjee had fought from Behala Purba Assembly constituency.