Top TMC leaders arrested: What is the Narada sting operation?

Three senior Trinamool Congress leaders were arrested by the CBI on Monday, in relation to the Narada sting operation case. Hundreds of party supporters had gathered outside the CBI following the development.

The arrested leaders include Firhad Hakim, Subrata Mukherjee and Madan Mitra.

Within hours of the arrest, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee reached the CBI office and challenged them to "arrest" her as well. The third-time Bengal CM slammed the arrests as "illegal".

What is the Narada sting operation?

The sting operation was a series of secret tapes recorded by Mathew Samuel of Narada TV news channel in 2014. The tapes showed TMC ministers, leaders and an IPS officer taking money from representatives of a fictitious company in lieu of favours.

Subrata Mukherjee, Sovan Chatterjee, Madan Mitra, Firhad Hakim, Saugata Roy, Kakoli Ghosh Dastidar and Prasun Banerjee were the leaders who were allegedly caught on camera. TMC turncoats and currently-BJP leaders Mukul Roy and Suvendu Adhikari were also accused in the case.

MH Ahmed Mirza, a senior police officer, was the first accused in the case to be arrested in 2019.

Interestingly, the 'sting operation' was carried out in 2014, but the tapes were released right before the 2016 assembly elections in West Bengal. Despite this, the TMC managed to win the election with two-thirds majority.

Later, the Calcutta High Court ordered a CBI probe into the sting operation in March 2017.