A long, long time ago, in 1980, in a place far, far away from New Delhi – Calcutta – a simpleton called Kedar Chattujye, having failed his BA exams thrice, was bundled off to his uncle’s house in Bihar. The simpleton struggled and ultimately, through goodness of his heart, won the hand of the girl he loved.
This was the plot of 1980s monster hit Dada’r Kirti (Exploits of Elder Brother), directed by Tarun Majumdar, with music by Hemanta Mukherjee. The star was a young actor called Tapas Paul.
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Didi Would Spare None
- Mamata alleges party MP Sudip Bandyopadhyay’s arrest
a vindictive move by the Centre against TMC’s stand on demonetisation.
- TMC-led protest across Bengal will cost India
dearly with Bengal being the highest producer of rice, jute and mesta.
- Mamata will try and rake up the issue of cash
shortage hitting the farm sector.
- TMC will use other tools as well to get even with
the Modi-led government, with a currency printing press being located at
Salboni.
- GST would be another casualty due to the war of
words between Mamata and the Centre.
Arrest of Tapas Paul
Today, Paul is in jail, arrested by the CBI on 31 December, around the time Prime Minister Narendra Modi was trying to justify his own demonetisation scheme through a live telecast.
In the 36 years since the big hit, Paul’s film fortune has gone through ups and downs, but his public profile is intact.
In 2014, Narendra Modi swept much of northern India in the Lok Sabha polls. Simultaneously, Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamool Congress (TMC) swept Bengal, winning 34 of the 42 seats in the third-most electorally significant state in India. Among her MPs: Tapas Paul, from Krishnanagar. It was Paul’s second victory. He had won the seat in 2009 as well.
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Sudip Bandyopadhyay in CBI Net
On Tuesday, 3 January, Sudip Bandyopadhyay, TMC MP from Kolkata North, perhaps the party’s most influential strategist and one of Mamata’s closest confidantes, was arrested by the CBI.
The charges against both Paul and Bandyopadhyay are similar: Association with a company called Rose Valley, one of several companies, including the now-bankrupt Saradha, accused of running Ponzi schemes in Bengal, Odisha, Assam and Jharkhand. These schemes prospered from 2009 till their eventual meltdown in 2013. During these four Ponzi years, the Left was in power in Bengal for the initial two years and TMC in the following two.
On Tuesday, after Bandyopadhyay’s arrest, Mamata said these punitive actions were New Delhi’s retaliation against her party’s strong opposition to Modi’s 8 November demonetisation exercise.
Centre’s Botched Response
The demonetisation snuffed out 86.4 percent by value of two high-denomination currencies in circulation. A botched response by government and the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), which capped cash withdrawals by fiat and is likely to fail to restore adequate cash supplies in the economy till at least October 2017, has upended India’s economy.
Banerjee, along with the Congress, DMK and some other opposition parties, has been the front-line opposition to demonetisation and its impact on the poor. It is this, she believes, that has made her party – and elected lawmakers – targets of New Delhi’s interrogations and arrests.
Bengal Lockdown
She could be correct. Paul was arrested six weeks after demonetisation came into effect; Bandyopadhyay, four days later. On Wednesday, 4 January, the TMC promises to lock down Bengal, protesting these arrests. It will cost India – and the Modi-led administration in Delhi – dear.
Bengal is India’s highest producer of rice, jute and mesta, according to official numbers. In 2015, it grew nearly 25.5 billion tonnes of vegetables as India’s largest vegetable producing state, 30 percent-plus more than Uttar Pradesh, despite having a third of UP’s landmass. One out of every three potatoes on your thali has come from Bengal. It also produces the world’s costliest tea, in the districts of Darjeeling and Kalimpong.
Rabi Crop Hit
Demonetisation has hit farmers hard. In a recent article, Mahua Maitra, a former investment banker who is now a TMC general secretary, pointed out how, despite the government’s claims, sowing for the winter (or rabi) rice crop had crashed. Anecdotal evidence from farm-rich districts like Burdwan, where even barter trade cannot make up for the cash shortage, supports her data.
If Bengal’s winter harvest sputters, as it will, India’s cities will experience high food inflation through the next few months. Mamata is keenly aware of the cash shortage-led farm crisis in her backyard. She will raise the stakes in her opposition to this measure.
The recent arrests will only strengthen the TMC’s resolve to beat – if not physically evict – the BJP from their turf.
Coercive Political Methods
Bengal politics is violent and turns on the simple premise of elaka dakhal or physical capture of territory. The TMC has perfected this art, after learning the same from the Left, which ruled for 34 years through this strategy. The BJP is yet to comprehend this game.
The TMC can use other tools at its disposal too. One of the government’s four currency printing presses is located at Salboni in West Midnapore district. It is one of the most modern presses, responsible for taking up much of the slack from older presses at Nashik and Dewas.
TMC Could Hit Note Printing
On 29 December, The Quint reported that workers at Salboni had switched back to nine-hour of three shifts, compared to the 12 hours they were working once note printing was put on high gear. This has been instigated by Mamata, whose TMC controls the workers’ union at Salboni.
The Centre has CBI to do its dirty work. But Mamata can shut down Salboni altogether if she wants to. This will wreck the programme of printing new notes fast and save Modi’s face after his botched demonetisation programme.
Also Read: Printing of Rs 500 Notes Hit at Salboni Press as TMC Intervenes
GST’s Fate in Balance
West Bengal Finance Minister Amit Mitra heads the all-important interstate council of finance ministers that will have to finalise legislation to implement a pan-India goods and services tax (GST). Talks have been in a deadlock and the April 2017 deadline cannot be met.
If relations between the Centre and states like Bengal worsen, expect GST to come unstuck. That will be a blow to reforms in India.
The Centre, say political pundits, can retaliate by imposing President’s rule, but recent history – in Uttarakhand and Arunachal Pradesh – shows that courts are likely to throw out such calls. Modi has met his match in Mamata.
(The writer is a Delhi-based senior journalist. He can be reached @AbheekBarman. This is an opinion piece and the views expressed above are the author’s own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for the same.)
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