Embarrassment for Mamata: After Partha, Another Close Aide Held on Corruption Charges

Manas Dasgupta

NEW DELHI, Aug 11: In yet another huge embarrassment for the West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee, The Trinamool Congress Birbhum district president and a key figure in the party hierarchy Anubrata Mondal, who was repeatedly evading summons for questioning, was on Thursday arrested by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) in an alleged cattle smuggling case.

He was arrested allegedly for not cooperating with the central agency. Mondal had cited health reasons to skip at least eight summons of the CBI, including two earlier this week.

The CBI team came to the house of the Trinamool’s Birbhum district chief along with Central Reserve Police Force personnel to arrest him after his lawyers said on health ground he needed at least two weeks before he could appear for questioning.

The CBI on Wednesday sent a report to its headquarters explaining how Mondal sought more time to face interrogation even after not responding to summons for a 10th time in the cattle smuggling case.

When the investigators reached his house on Thursday, they surrounded the property first before moving in, sources said. The Trinamool district chief is also known to be a local strongman. All the doors of his house were locked from inside, sources said. The CBI arrested him eventually, citing non-cooperation with the probe into the cattle smuggling case.

He will be brought to state capital Kolkata. Earlier, his doctor had prescribed bed rest for Mondal as he was planning to go for an operation to treat a fistula, but the authorities in state-run SSKM Hospital said he did not need hospitalisation.

In the cattle smuggling case, in which Mondal has been arrested, he has been accused by the CBI of being among the TMC leaders and government officers who allegedly benefited from the proceeds of cattle smuggling.

Mondal is also under the CBI scanner in the coal pilferage case and the post-poll violence of last year.

On May 2 last year, the day of the Bengal Assembly results, BJP worker Gaurab Sarkar was beaten to death in Gopalnagar in Birbhum. As fingers pointed towards Mondal’s alleged involvement, he was questioned by the CBI. However, in a major relief to Mondal, in February, the Calcutta High Court granted him protection from coercive action by the CBI in the post-poll violence case.

The CBI has filed four charge-sheets in the cattle smuggling case and named 11 accused. Mondal’s bodyguard, Saigal Hossain, was arrested in the case. The CBI alleged the bodyguard played a key role in moving money between cattle smugglers and Mondal. The CBI claims Hossain has also amassed properties worth crores of rupees.

Though 62-years old Mondal has been named in a number of cases, including for threatening people, murder and those related to sand-, stone- and cattle-smuggling, he has rarely been tried in any of these. Earlier this year, former Governor and now Vice President Jagdeep Dhankhar had pulled up the police for allowing Mondal to use a red beacon on his vehicle.

Sources point out that if none of these cases deterred Mondal or slowed him down, it was because he had Mamata’s blessings. Mondal, popularly called “Kestoda”, is considered among the most trusted aides of Banerjee enjoying more clout and power in the state than ministers and several MLAs. His is the last word in Birbhum, with his palatial home in the district drawing more crowds than the TMC’s district party office.

Mondal, who has not contested any election so far, is the TMC’s strategist for Birbhum, preferring to manage the party from behind the scenes. In the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, the TMC clinched both the seats, Birbhum and Bolpur, from the district. The party repeated that feat in the 2021 Assembly elections, when it swept the district, winning 10 of 11 seats – a performance that was credited to Mondal’s booth management skills. In each of these elections, the Election Commission had kept him under strict surveillance following complaints that he might influence voters.

Mondal who comes from a family of farmers, has been with the TMC since its inception in 1998. His strongman image first came into focus during the 2013 panchayat election – two years after Mamata Banerjee first came to power in the state – when he allegedly asked party workers to hurl bombs at policemen and burn down houses of Independent candidates. Over a period of time, Mondal gained infamy for his provocative speeches, often issuing open threats to the police.

In February, Mondal was even included in the TMC’s national working committee, the only district-level leader in the top TMC body that’s headed by Mamata.

Mondal’s arrest is the second high-profile crackdown by central agencies on West Bengal leaders for alleged corruption after the arrest of former Trinamool minister Partha Chatterjee and his aide Arpita Mukherjee in the school staff selection commission scam and seizure by the Enforcement Directorate of over Rs 51 crores in cash believed to the proceeds of the scam.

Banerjee and her party had come under severe criticism over Chatterjee’s arrest and Mondal’s arrest, too, is likely to provide more ammunition in the hands of the rival BJP to attack the chief minister and her ruling party.