ED Examination Over Awkward Situation: Why Abhishek Banerjee Stayed Away From I.N.D.I. Alliance Meet

Trinamool Congress general secretary Abhishek Banerjee has virtuously claimed that he obeyed the ED summons to him, instead of going to the I.N.D.I. Alliance coordination committee meeting on Wednesday (13 September) because he adhered to the “principles of accountability and transparency”. 

The Enforcement Directorate (ED) had summoned Banerjee to question him on his suspected involvement in the cash-for-jobs scam in the school education department. Banerjee was grilled for nine hours at the ED office in Kolkata. 

Emerging from the ED office Wednesday evening, Banerjee said that he could have skipped the ED summons and attended the coordination committee meeting held at Sharad Pawar’s residence in New Delhi instead. 

“But my principles — accountability and transparency — stopped me (from going to New Delhi to attend that meeting,” Banerjee told waiting reporters. 

He said that he has never done anything wrong and is open to scrutiny. That’s why he chose to submit himself to grilling by the ED rather than attend the I.N.D.I. Alliance coordination committee meeting. 

However, Banerjee’s show of righteousness and claims of adherence to principles does not stand up to scrutiny. He has skipped summons by central agencies in the past and has engaged top lawyers of the country to challenge the summons in the Calcutta High Court and even the Supreme Court. 

Thus, it is not adherence to some noble code of conduct that stopped Banerjee from traveling to New Delhi. 

Rather, it was his party’s bid to save itself deep embarrassment that kept Banerjee away from New Delhi. The ED summons came at a very convenient time and was used as a handy fig leaf to stay away from the meeting. 

The primary agenda at the meeting was the potential embarrassment that lay in store for the Trinamool Congress. The first meeting of the alliance’s coordination committee was slated to initiate discussions on seat-sharing between alliance partners in different states. 

Seat-sharing in Bengal would have inevitably come up for discussion. That would have put Abhishek Banerjee in a spot since the prospects of the Trinamool Congress reaching an agreement with the Congress and the Left in Bengal is virtually nil. 

As a major constituent of the I.N.D.I. Alliance, Banerjee would have been hard-pressed to explain why seat-sharing won’t happen in Bengal (read this). 

Mamata Banerjee would have been able to come up with reasons for that and, thanks to her decades of political experience and her political acumen, would have been able to provide an explanation and also deflect the blame to the Congress and the Left. 

But Mamata Banerjee left for Dubai Wednesday morning with her nephew (Abhishek) as her party’s nominee to the eleven-member coordinating committee.

Abhishek, despite his pretensions, is seen as a novice in politics. Senior Trinamool functionaries admit that he lacks his aunt’s political astuteness. 

As such, he would not have been able to handle things on his own at the New Delhi meeting which was attended by veteran politicians.

Had Mamata Banerjee felt that Wednesday’s meeting would be an important one (for her party) and should not go unrepresented, she would have asked Abhishek to seek a fresh date from the ED and attend the New Delhi meeting. 

The ED had, many times in the past (in Bengal as well as other states) accommodated such requests. 

Also, there are numerous instances of many politicians skipping ED and Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) summons without any adverse consequences. So it was not mandatory on Abhishek Banerjee’s part to obey the ED summons.

And even if it was deemed important for Abhishek to go to the ED’s office for questioning on Wednesday (13 September) for the sole purpose of political posturing, Mamata Banerjee would have deputed one from among the many senior leaders of the party to attend the New Delhi meeting. 

The fact that she did not, proves that she was not interested in sending any representative of her party to New Delhi. 

What's more, there is yet another reason behind what actually amounted to the Trinamool’s boycott of the meeting. 

Mamata Banerjee has been upset with the leadership of the Congress and the Left for not reigning in their state leaders who have been lambasting her party and accusing it of various wrongdoings almost on a daily basis. 

Bengal Congress president Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury, an implacable foe of Mamata Banerjee, has not been missing any opportunity to keep up his tirade against Banerjee. 

Chowdhury, reacting to the ED questioning of Abhishek Banerjee, chose to take the side of the ED.

“The ED is conducting a court-monitored investigation. People in Bengal want all the corrupt booked,” said Chowdhury. 

CPI(M) state secretary Mohammad Salim mocked the act of keeping a chair empty at the meeting at Sharad Pawar’s residence to signal the absence of Abhishek Banerjee. 

“They could have kept his (Abhishek’s) slippers on that chair,” said Salim in an apparent reference to the Ramayan, where Bharat ruled in Ayodhya in Shri Ram’s vanvaas (exile) by keeping his elder brother’s footwear on the throne. 

Mamata Banerjee wants the national leadership of the Congress and the CPI(M) to impose a gag order on their state leaders. She has conveyed her displeasure at the criticism directed against her, her family members and her party by Congress and Left leaders to the central leadership of both the parties.

But that seems to have had no effect and the central leaderships of both the parties have, apparently, allowed their state leaders to chart an independent course. Congress and Left leaders have been accusing the Trinamool of corruption, misgovernance and many other wrongdoings.

Banerjee is acutely aware of the fact that given the antagonism of the state units of the Congress and CPI(M) towards her party, a seat-sharing arrangement with those two parties will not be possible. 

More so since the state leadership of those two parties will not accept the handful of Lok Sabha seats she will be offering to them, to contest from next year. 

Hence, since the prospects of a seat-sharing arrangement between the Trinamool, Congress and Left in Bengal is virtually nil, Banerjee saw little point in sending her nephew or a representative to attend a meeting of the alliance in her absence. 

Thus, it was to save himself from embarrassment and discomfiture that awaited him in New Delhi that Abhishek Banerjee decided to obey the ED summons. 

Also read: Why The INDI-Alliance Won’t Work In Bengal