April 23: John Barla, the JMM
leader keen to ally with the Trinamul Congress for the panchayat
elections, has had second thoughts on moving forward with the tie-up
given the repeated allegations against the ruling party’s closeness with
the Saradha Group.
“We had been insisting on a tie-up
with Trinamul for the rural polls. But the Saradha Group issue has made
our leaders give second thoughts to the issue. Most of us want to
distance ourselves from the party and take up this issue,” a senior
leader in Barla’s JMM said.
The JMM’s problem
is that if it is seen as close to Trinamul, it would not be able to
raise the protest pitch in the plains’ tea gardens against fraud finance
companies when many hundreds of tea workers are sufferers in the scam.
“If we keep
hobnobbing with Trinamul, we cannot speak much against the scam or
launch a movement and we risk losing the support of our people. On the
other hand, if we take up the issue and launch a movement on the demand
for refund of the depositors’ money, we can consolidate our support base
and can decelerate the progress of Trinamul in the Dooars,” the leader
said.
Barla today said:
“Thousands of tea workers have deposited money under different schemes
of the group (Saradha), expecting high returns. We have sent a letter to
the north Bengal development minister, requesting him to intervene and
ensure that the deposits are paid back to the workers.’
He said if the state “remains silent on the issue of refund, we would be left with no other option but to launch movement”.
Barla said his
party leaders had “already launched an awareness drive, urging people to
refrain from investing their hard-earned money” in such fraud fund
companies.
According to
administrative sources, though the total amount of investment made by
workers of the brew belt is yet to be calculated, it is evident that a
huge amount of money has been collected by these companies from them.
“The Saradha Group
and numerous other such companies have been operating in the Dooars for
the past two-three years. According to our information, 84 such
companies had branches in Malbazar, 45 in Banarhat, 60 in Birpara and 40
in Kalchini. The mushrooming of branches indicates the inflow of funds
as all these small towns are located across the Dooars belt. Many of
these companies have closed down while a few are working now,” a source
said.
In north Bengal,
eight complaints were lodged against the Saradha Group today. Police
said five complaints were filed in Balurghat and one each in
Bhaktinagar, Raiganj and Kalimpong.
Leaders of the
Akhil Bharatiya Adivasi Vikas Parishad, while speaking on the issue,
said that retired tea workers had deposited money with these companies.
“While most of the
workers invested money under recurring and other monthly deposit
schemes, a good number of retired workers have deposited the money they
have received as provident fund and gratuity. We want both the state and
central governments to take up the issue and ensure that the poor
workers, who were duped by these companies, get back their money,” said
Rajesh Lakra, the general secretary of north Bengal regional unit of
the Parishad.
“A letter would be
soon sent to the governments. If the governments remain lackadaisical,
we would be forced to launch a movement,” he said.
Representatives of
other political parties such as the RSP, CPM and the Congress also
hinted at starting a movement to make the scam an issue to beat
Trinamul.
As tea workers
express concern over their deposits like lakhs of other investors across
the state, senior trade union leaders spoke about the movement while
pointing out the absence of banking infrastructure.
“It is not only
the issue of restricting activities of chit funds and securing the
refunds of the deposits. The state should also work to spread banking
network in the tea belt that has around 160 gardens. There are several
gardens from where the nearest bank is 25km away,” Chitta Dey, convener
of the Co-ordination Committee of Tea Plantation Workers, an apex body
of trade unions, said.
“This discourages
workers from visiting banks and under such circumstances, they are
approached by agents of these chit fund companies,” Dey said.
Trinamul leaders seemed unperturbed.
“Opposition
parties would not succeed in slandering us as people in the Dooars have
expressed spontaneous support to us,” said Chandan Bhowmik, the
Jalpaiguri district Trinamul president.
“Our chief
minister has proved her sincerity to take care of Dooars residents and
regarding the chit fund issue, the government is putting its best
efforts to protest the interests of depositors and agents.”
The Telegraph
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