A blow to Mamata

The Calcutta high court’s order directing a CBI inquiry into the Narada sting is another blow to the credibility of Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamul government in West Bengal. This is the third major controversy to hit the TMC, after the Saradha and Rose Valley scams, involving thousands of crores of rupees people lost to scamsters, and it’s clear the rulers have a lot to answer for. It’s not that politicians haven’t been hit by probes that seem to have established a nexus between scamsters and ruling party leaders, many of whom were sent to jail or severely indicted. But the probes are still dismissed as a political vendetta by Ms Banerjee though they were ordered by the courts rather than unilaterally by the CBI, seen as beholden to its New Delhi masters.

The ease with which politicians run rings around the system even while being investigated suggests a much deeper malaise. The dismissive way in which “Didi” treated the involvement of an IPS official in the sting tape as “no big issue” shows how little leaders care for probity. The government has every right to appeal to the Supreme Court, but here too the strategy of seeking higher judicial intervention is part of a growing national pattern of politicians using dilatory tactics to preserve the status quo. There are glaring examples like of Lalu Prasad Yadav and Kanimozhi who are still in full-time politics despite being convicted or facing conviction under the Prevention of Corruption Act. Others subject to probes appear to face the consequences, but politicians seem to carry on as usual.