Amid Mamata firefighting, TMC’s ‘old vs young’ faultline flares as Kunal targets Sudip

The discontent against the Trinamool Congress (TMC) in Sandeshkhali has already put the ruling party on the backfoot in West Bengal. With the Lok Sabha polls round the corner, the allegations of land grab and sexual assault have added fire to the party’s troubles, which started over two years ago, following probes by central agencies into allegations of scams and arrests of senior party leaders that have continued with regularity since then.

In this backdrop, party spokesperson Kunal Ghosh’s latest broadside against the TMC brass has opened another front against the embattled Mamata Banerjee dispensation.

Ghosh has trained his guns on veteran party MP Sudip Banerjee — the TMC Lok Sabha leader — over questions surrounding who paid for his prolonged hospital stay in Bhubaneshwar, after he was arrested by the CBI.

Ghosh has, in fact, threatened to go to court over this, although he is yet to clarify who he blames for the allegation he has made.

The TMC state secretary said in a post on his X handle a few days ago: “@dir_ed @CBIHeadquarters The bank accounts of Sudip Banerjee, MP and payments on behalf of him to AIIMS, Bhubaneswar must be investigated. When he was in custody, whether a large amount paid to him or paid to hospital on behalf of him or not, that should be probed. If it is founded to fact, then it may relate with coal scam and Banerjee should be arrested for further investigation. If agencies try to avoid this, I should move to Ld Court praying for investigation into this matter.”

The reference is to the CBI arrest of Bandopadhyay on January 3, 2017, over his alleged involvement in the Rs 17,000 crore Rose Valley Ponzi “scam”. Bandopadhyay had then been taken to Odisha and kept in a jail there, where he fell ill and