Such faith in the CBI?

BY Darius Nakhoonwala| IN Opinion | 16/12/2014
The Telegraph which has turned into a major critic after having supported the Trinamool Congress till 2012, went into Alfie Doolittle-like rhetoric.
DARIUS NAKHOONWALA is bemused at the Mamata bashing.
You don’t say!
Darius Nakhoonwala
 
Almost thirty years ago, the newspaper I was working for was raided by the CBI. They took away many files from the management side.They also took reams of printouts from the teleprinters that were lying uncut on the floor on the editorial side.

The next day all other newspapers carried an agency item saying that ‘incriminating documents’ had been found. We were getting a taste of what other people had experienced before us. The editor was livid. At the edit meeting that morning he informed us that the CBI was a political tool of the government.

Nothing has changed in the 28 years that have elapsed since then. The CBI continues to plod along, swaying ponderously jigs to whatever tune is being played at the moment. But that’s to be expected. What is not to be expected is that editorials should sometimes call the CBI “a political tool of the government” and sometimes endorse whatever it is doing.

It was, after all, just a little while ago they were pillorying it for a variety of sins of omission and commission. But ever since it arrested one of Mamata Banerjee’s ministers for his alleged role in the Saradha scam, they have been falling over each other to praise it.

The Telegraph, which has turned into a major critic after having supported the TMC till 2012, went into Alfie Doolittle-like rhetoric. “The noose is tightening. It is tightening around those who are at the very centre of power in West Bengal. The arrest of Madan Mitra... is a telling piece of evidence regarding the direction of the arrow of suspicion. Mr Mitra is known for his proximity to...Mamata Banerjee... three (persons she has defended) are now in the custody of the CBI.”

The Hindu was more staid. “A political offensive is no substitute for a legal defence. With senior members of her party under pressure from the CBI... Mamata Banerjee is trying to portray the entire issue as a conspiracy by the BJP ...she seems to have gone too far in trying to discredit the whole investigation and attribute motives to the CBI...the proper course would have been to wait till the courts cleared him of all charges before pronouncing him innocent...” 

The Times of India, whose editorial policy seems to be never to annoy the Centre, said, “Predictably, Mamata has termed the development as a conspiracy against her by the BJP-led government at the Centre... (she) needs to come out of a conspiracy-mongering mindset... she has chosen to describe everything from the Park Street rape case to critical questioning by media and members of public as conspiracies against her administration and herself personally... (but this) isn’t going to win her sympathy.”
 
The Hindustan Times took a ‘balanced’ view. “The arrest of a West Bengal minister in the Saradha scam,” it said, “can be looked at in two ways. First, that the investigation into the scam has gone further after the Central Bureau of Investigation’s (CBI’s) second chargesheet, though it is not clear why the minister’s arrest came so late...Second, the scope for politicising the scam has deepened...Mamata Banerjee has again complained of her party being the subject of vendetta... the way the Trinamool has been behaving only reinforces suspicions of wrong-doing.”

The Pioneer, as befits a paper that supports the BJP through fouls and follies, called Ms. Banerjee’s responses “silly belligerence”. The rest was in similar vein. “In keeping with the dramatic flourishes she is known for, Ms Banerjee even dared the two to arrest her! The time for such false bravado is over, and the more the Chief Minister indulges in it, the more her worry gets accentuated. Surely Ms Banerjee knows that it is not the job of either Mr Modi or Mr Shah to arrest or release people.” Then came the sanctimony. “There is a process of law, and this is being followed by the Central Bureau of Investigation...it is difficult to believe that the country's premier investigation agency would have arrested these persons without solid prima facie evidence... Ms Banerjee's rant and rattle is directly linked to the plunging credibility of her party, Government and of herself as a leader who had so far enjoyed a taint-free political life...with the BJP making inroads in public perception and popularity in West Bengal, she has now to handle a formidable political foe. 

The Indian Express which is usually the first off the mark woke up a day late. So it focused on the ‘larger issue’. “The question has reared its head once again: how appropriate is it for a chief minister, who, ironically, also holds the home portfolio, to launch street protests and accuse a Central agency of partisanship in an ongoing investigation?...The sight of her defending accused colleagues in public and hurling unsubstantiated charges of political blackmail at the Centre and the CBI does her cultivated image of being the people’s politician no good... much of Banerjee’s anxiety about Trinamool leaders on the CBI radar stems from the rise of the BJP in West Bengal.”

Et tu, Express? Oh woe is me!
 
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