Nowadays, you all must have noticed Biswa Bangla store almost everywhere in Kolkata. You may know what Biswa Bangla is; still I am giving you the introduction for the people, who haven’t known about it yet.
Biswa Bangla is an initiative to promote the state’s dying arts and crafts. With brand Biswa Bangla, which as its tagline goes, is where the world meets Bengal, chief minister Mamata Banerjee has taken it forward to: ‘What Bengal does today, India does tomorrow.’Though the depth and reality can be a matter of debate, but a new doubt has been shown up!
Who does Biswa Bangla belong to? This question has started to rise. The normal answer can be, government. There’s no doubt about that Biswa Bangla Marketing Corporation Limited was the brain child of Chief Minister Mamata Bannerjee. The logo of Biswa Bangla is being used in every West Bengal government website and advertisement. This is not at all questionable.
But did you know, the applicant person for the trademark of Biswa Bangla is not associated with any post or any level of the government? Even, his name isn’t on the list of the Board of Directors of Biswa Bangla. The organization has no official connection with the applicant person. Even long before the creation of the organization, that person had applied for Biswa Bangla trade mark.
Now you do want to know who he is, don’t you? He is the prince of Trinamool Congress and dearest nephew of Bengal’s ‘didi’, Abhishek Banerjee. His position is immediate after the CM in Trinamool. Mamata Banerjee claimed in Nabbanna press conference that Prime Minister Narendra Modi wanted to arrest Abhishek. He is the most influential leader of Trinamool. But does he holds a position of the state government? What is his relation with the Biswa Bangla Marketing Corporation Limited?
Information from Register of Companies (ROC) has raised the puzzle. Official information said, the application of Biswa Bangla had come from 30B, Harish Chatterjee Street, Kalighat, Kolkata-700026, from Abhishek Banerjee. The date of the application was 26th November, 2013. A Kolkata firm, C.J. Associates had submitted the application on behalf of Abhishek. Application number was 2633532. Abhishek’s name was given on the place of ‘business name’ in the application form.
Though, Biswa Bangla Marketing Corporation Limited was established on 31st December, 2014. The category of the company said that it’s a governmental organization with registration number-204751. Authorized capital shown of the organization was Rs. 2crore. Though paid up capital was only Rs. 1lakh, which is undoubtedly surprising.
And there’s one more thing. The company didn’t have the records of income and expenditure. The address given for the company was Newtown Rajarhat Action Area-3, Karigari Bhavan, and Plot No. B/7. The present status of Biswa Bangla trademark is abandoned. By Trademark Registration law, if you get a logo on the basis of an application, you have to apply for renewal within 18 months. Practically state government hasn’t submitted any application.
So, questions have started to rise on the transparency of Biswa Bangla logo. There are five members in the Board of Directors of Biswa Bangla, Harshbardhan Neotia (additional director), Rudra Chatterjee (additional director), Subal Chandra Paja (director), Rajib Sinha (director), Mohua Banerjee (director). But none of them have applied for the logo, Abhishek did.
In 2013, he hasn’t became MP of Trinamool Congress, he was related with a Commercial Organization. He then was the dearest nephew only. He made an appeal of the official logo on basis of the relation with CM? Can it really be done at all? If no, then the whole thing is illegal. Any person, who is not associated with the organization can’t apply for trademark.
Government claimed that turnover of Biswa Bangla was 15 crore on the very first year. But why is Abhishek Banerjee the applicant? None of the BOD had given the answer of this question. However, the answer wasn’t given by the nephew, either.
An officer of the Information and Cultural Department said, “I don’t know how this happened but he is the family member of Chief Minister! May be it has happened.”
And more interesting information is after applying for the trademark of Biswa Bangla, application was submitted on 29th June 2015 for Jago Bangla and on 3rd July 2015 for all India Trinamool Congress trademark. The address of the applicant was also the same as Biswa Bangla.
On 30th January 2015, CBI interrogating Mukul Roy at CGO complex, screenplay of Mukul Roy’s so-called distance with Mamata Banerjee, the speed of CBI’s Sarada investigation suddenly became slow, and all those thing happened nearly at the same time. Strange, isn’t it?
