Saradha makes Barla wary of alliance Tribal leader rethinks on Trinamul

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.”