Mamata Getting Criticism In Saradha Chitfund Scam

The Saradha chitfund scam is crating tremors in Trinamool Congress party and is also affecting the party chief Mamata Banerjee.

Kolkata: The North East India witnessed one of the largest scams in the form of Saradha Chitfund Scam. The scam involving crores of rupees is having political background also. The master minds behind the scam adopted centuries old Ponzi scheme and they could also succeed in involving 1.7 million innocent investors.

Ponzi schemes available in the present day market in the form of network marketing, multI-level marketing, pyramid marketing etc. The promoters of the scheme attract investors with higher rate of returns and the innocent investors get attracted to these schemes (scams) with expectations of getting fancy rate of returns.

The present Saradha scam started in West Bengal and later on the network extended to neighbouring states like Assam, Chattisgarh, Odisha etc. The doubtful operations attracted the attention of SEBI way back in 2009 and the regulator advised the Saradha Company to stop their unauthorised activities till getting necessary approvals from the various regulators. The organizers (till that time operating mostly from West Bengal) extended their area of operations to neighbouring states and also widened their gamut of offers.

As a natural conclusion, the schemes collapsed in 2013 and the promoter directors were arrested. Large scale investigations also started. The Supreme Court of India intervened in between and transferred all the investigations to CBI (as there are multi-level investigations taking place in many states). The central & state government established some revolving fund to help the small and innocent investors.

In this background, the Saradha scam is taking political shape. Already the 2 MP’s belonging to the ruling Trinamool Congress were arrested. One of them was subsequently suspended (by Mamata Banerjee) from the party and now he is alleging that Mamata is the largest beneficiary of the scam herself.

Mamata is trying her best to divert the attention of the people by undertaking mud-slinging activities on BJP and central government. There is no open discussion on the modus operandi of the scheme, the root of the scam, the volume of the scam amount, the list of victims and the relief activities.

Without converting the whole episode towards political mileage issue, the Center and West Bengal government need to immediately come open and clarify the doubts about the Saradha scam.