The Narada sting operation case has once again ruffled the political feathers in West Bengal, this time just weeks after the Trinamool Congress (TMC) trounced the BJP in a bitterly fought assembly election. On May 17, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) arrested three TMC legislators and a former leader of the party. The TMC has cried political vendetta over the arrests whereas the BJP says the CBI is just doing its job. The case may have triggered a political row but it has more to do with probity in public life and government corruption. Let's dig deeper:
What is the Narada case?
The sting operation was conducted by senior journalist Mathew Samuel and published on the news website 'Narada' in 2016, just ahead of the assembly election in West Bengal. The tapes purportedly show 12 TMC leaders, including ministers, MPs and MLAs, accepting bribes from Samuel who posed as the representative of a fictitious company.
The TMC leaders allegedly caught on camera were Firhad Hakim, Subrata Mukherjee, Madan Mitra, Sovan Chatterjee, Saugata Roy, Kakoli Ghosh Dastidar, Prasun Banerjee, Iqbal Ahmed, Aparupa Poddar and Sultan Ahmed (he died in 2017), Mukul Roy and Suvendu Adhikari. S M H Meerza, then a superintendent of police, was also named.
What happened next?
The TMC questioned the authenticity of the footage but the Central Forensic Science Laboratory certified it as authentic.
On March 17, 2017, the Calcutta High Court ordered the CBI to probe the case and, if necessary, lodge an FIR against those involved. On April 17 that year, the CBI lodged an FIR against all the 12 TMC leaders and subsequently summoned them for questioning. After several twists and turns over the past five years, the CBI has now arrested four of them. The agency hasn't (so far) arrested Suvendu Adhikari or Mukul Roy (both of whom are in the BJP).
What does the TMC say?
From the very first day, the TMC has been calling the sting operation a "conspiracy". And it has pointed out how Adhikari and Roy, both BJP MLAs now, have been spared by the CBI.
West Bengal Governor Jagdeep Dhankhar, nominated by the BJP-ruled Centre, announced granting the prosecution sanction against Hakim and Mukherjee on May 9, a day before they were to take oath as ministers in the new state cabinet.
What's the CBI's argument?
The central agency denies having spared the BJP leaders. It says it has sought the Lok Sabha speaker's sanction to prosecute not just Adhikari and Roy but also MPs Saugata Roy, Dastidar, Banerjee and Poddar.
What's the present status?
In a dramatic turn of events on May 17, CBI officials, accompanied by a large number of central forces, picked up Hakim, Mukherjee, Mitra and Chatterjee from their homes and brought them to the CBI office at Nizam Palace in Kolkata where they arrested them later. While a CBI court granted all of them bail in the evening, the CBI moved the Calcutta High Court and succeeded in staying the bail hours later. The CBI has asked for transferring the case to another state and implicating Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and Law Minister Malay Ghatak. The case will be heard again on May 20.
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