CPI-M’s three-point strategy in support of Mahua in ‘cash for query’ case

The Trinamool Congress leadership has indicated that Moitra will need to handle this issue on her own, and they will wait for the Ethics Committee of Parliament's decision before expressing their stance.

Kolkata: At a time when the Trinamool Congress leadership is playing it safe over the recently surfaced “cash for query” case involving the party Lok Sabha member from Krishnanagar constituency in Nadia district, Mahua Moitra, the latter has received unprecedented support from the leadership of her party’s arch political rival, the CPI(M).

The Trinamool Congress leadership, while making it clear that Moitra will have to fight her own battle in the matter, has reserved its reaction till the decision of the Ethics Committee of Parliament comes.

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However, heavyweight CPI(M) leaders, mainly the party’s politburo member and state secretary in West Bengal Md Salim and central committee member Sujan Chakraborty have made public statements of sympathy for Moitra.

While claiming that from the nature of the allegations against Moitra it is evident that they were sponsored, Salim questioned the manner in which the meeting of the otherwise inactive “Ethics Committee” was convened overnight in this particular case. Salim also accused West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee of being attentive only about “her own nephew” without caring for others in her party.

Chakraborty said that it is evident that since Moitra was more vocal on the floor of Parliament on the Adani issue than other Trinamool Congress MPs, she is facing the ire of the ruling party at the Centre and recent developments are a reflection of this.

Political observers feel that the Marxists have a three-point strategy while dealing with Moitra and going soft on her even though her party, Trinamool Congress, is their principal political opponent in West Bengal.

The first part of the strategy is to send a signal to the Congress, especially its leader Rahul Gandhi, that the CPI(M) leadership is in solidarity with the leader of the country’s oldest national party on the Adani Group issue. Like the CPI(M), a number of Congress leaders too have expressed solidarity with Moitra in the “cash for query’ case.

The second part is to silence that section of the political class, which often accuses the CPI(M) of underplaying the BJP-issue in West Bengal in its enthusiasm to create an anti-people image of the Trinamool Congress over corruption.

“This was a subtle message from the CPI(M) leadership that though the Trinamool Congress might be uncomfortable in backing their most vocal Lok Sabha member on the Adani issue, the CPI(M) is not playing soft in the matter,” a city- based political observer said.

The third part of the strategy, according to observers, is an attempt by the CPI(M) leadership to create a division in the l Trinamool Congress on this issue.

“From Md Salim’s comment that the “aunt is not willing to protect anyone else in her party other that her own nephew’ or Sujan Chakraborty’s comment that “Moitra were more vocal on the Adani issue than any of her fellow party Parliamentarians’, it is evident that the Left leaders want to kindle an internal feud within the ruling Trinamool Congress,” the political observer pointed out.

Political observers feel that the Trinamool Congress has its own compulsion in not backing Moitra since that might jeopardize the Adani Group’s proposed investments in West Bengal for the next few years.

In April last year while addressing the inaugural session of the Bengal Global Business Summit-2022, the annual event organised by the West Bengal government to showcase the state as an ideal investment destination, the Adani Group founder and chairman Gautam Adani promised an investment by his group in the state to the tune of Rs 10,000 crore over the next few years.