The ‘rise and fall’ of Partha Chatterjee, Mamata Banerjee’s trusted loyalist

Known to be a loyalist of West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee, 70-year-old Partha Chatterjee’s slow but steady rise in the Trinamool Congress (TMC) left many of his colleagues in envy, a number of party veterans said on Monday even as the chief minister flared up at opposition parties for dragging her name into the school teacher recruitment scam in which Chatterjee, the party’s secretary general and Bengal’s industry minister, is now in the custody of the Enforcement Directorate (ED) as the prime suspect.

“Being two years younger to Chatterjee, the TMC supremo referred to him as Partha Da, or elder brother, though in close circles she never hesitated to make fun of his obesity, often calling him ‘Motu’ (the fatty one). They certainly shared affection,” said a senior leader who was associated with Chatterjee even before Banerjee broke away from the Congress and formed her own party in 1998.

Chatterjee came from a humble background, old-timers said.

A resident of south Kolkata, he studied at the Ramakrishna Mission Vidyalaya at Narendrapur in the city’s southern outskirts for three years, said a member of the school’s alumni association that made him a permanent invitee member.

“He attended one of the re-unions before the Covid-19 pandemic started. During a casual chat, he said nobody stays at the top in TMC forever. The fall may come as fast as the rise,” said the alumni association member, a businessman, who preferred to remain anonymous.

The prediction the minister made before his school friends appeared to be quite accurate against the backdrop of the current scenario.

“I don’t mind if anyone is found guilty and sentenced to life imprisonment. But why is my name being dragged into this? The BJP and CPI(M) are using my photographs in their campaign. I don’t even drink a cup of tea with someone else’s money,” Banerjee said on Monday in her first public reaction after Chatterjee’s arrest and seizure of ₹91.90 crore in cash, jewelley and property related documents from the home of Arpita Mukherjee, another prime suspect who has been described by ED as Chatterjee’s “close aide”.

The CM’s outburst, TMC leaders said, was not unexpected because till his arrest, Chatterjee was the only member of the senior leadership who was not a suspect in the Saradha and Narada cases being probed by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and ED for several years now.

“Chatterjee used to take pride in that. He suffered his first setback last year when CBI questioned him in the I-Core chit fund scam that the agency has been probing since 2014. This somehow enthused his rivals in the party,” a TMC leader said.

A section of leaders feels that after TMC founder member Mukul Roy joined the BJP in 2017, the post of secretary general was created for Chatterjee solely because of his long association with Mamata Banerjee.

“Partha joined the Youth Congress when he was a student at Asutosh College in Bhawanipore. Mamata, who still lives in the same neighbourhood, was a student of Jogomaya Debi College, the women’s institution housed in the same building. During the turbulent 1970s, Bengal witnessed the Naxalite movement spearheaded by urban college students. Partha became the general secretary of the college union and a follower of Subrata Mukherjee, who was the youngest minister in the Siddhartha Shankhar Ray government and also Mamata’s mentor,” a veteran leader said.

“The other person they followed was Priya Ranjan Dasmunsi but he moved into national politics,” the veteran added.

“After passing out from college, Partha decided to pursue higher studies, something few career politicians did during those days. He secured a Master’s degree from Calcutta university and got himself enrolled at the Indian Institute of Social Welfare and Business Management. The management degree helped him land a job at Andrew Yule, the engineering company once run by the British. He rose to become the head of its human resource department,” said a second veteran leader.

“Chatterjee was never known for making great speeches. So, he made up for this big shortcoming with his organisational skills,” he added.

Chatterjee left his corporate career and joined the TMC after its formation.

“His experience at Andrew Yule somehow paid off. Partha had helped several people get jobs in the company. Some of these men came from families with political background. But he had to lie low in the TMC for many years because the top rung was thronged by former bureaucrats such as Bikram Sarkar and Dipak Ghosh and veterans like Pankaj Banerjee, one of the TMC founders who was also the leader of the Opposition,” said a former TMC legislator.

“Chatterjee rose in the hierarchy after the veterans left, one by one, following differences with Mamata Banerjee. Winning the Behala West assembly seat in 2001 added to his importance. He was made leader of the Opposition at the assembly during the final years of the Left Front government. This gave him a status equal to a Cabinet Minister,” the former legislator added.

Chatterjee’s colleagues said he was always known for his love for bright kurtas, sweets and snacks that doctors forbade him to eat and cellphones that came with the latest technology.

“Chatterjee rarely shows his anger in public. His only weakness appears to be his daughter, Sohini, who got married a few years ago. His wife, Jayashree, passed away in 2017 after prolonged illness,” said a minister who did not want to be named.

“We were not shocked when reports of his association with several women appeared in the media over the last few days. But that is part of his personal life,” the minster added.