Mamata Banerjee has announced the setting up of a Rs 500-Cr relief fund to pay back the Saradha depositors.
She plans to generate revenue for this purpose – to the tune of 150 cr – by hiking taxes on cigarettes by 10 percent.
She has also advised the investors to be careful before investing money in chit funds.
But the moot question that the opposition is very right in asking is – was Mamata really unaware of the activities of her two MPs?
The question becomes more important in view of the fact that Kunal Ghosh is very close to the West Bengal CM and has always been flaunting her closeness to Mamata Banerjee.
Does propriety not demand that she should immediately ask her MPs to resign on moral grounds so that a free and fair investigation could be carried out against these MPs?
Sudipta Sen's personal record itself is very dubious. West Bengal police suspect Sen's real name is Shankaraditya Sen who was a Naxalite and frequently met Charu Mazumdar and was jailed in 1971-72.
Once out of jail, he became a land shark and roped in some of the same policemen who had arrested him. He disappeared in early 2000 to re-emerge as Sudipta Sen of the Saradha Group.