Who is Sudipta Sen?

From a real estate agent to a media baron, Sen's rise has been meteroric, to say the least

From a real estate agent to a media baron, Sudipta Sen’s rise was meteoric, to say the least.

Possibly, his first brush with business, was through real estate ventures. The ‘chit fund business’, as it is being loosely called, made its debut in 2006. Around the same time, Sen tried to register one of his several companies, Saradha Tours & Travels as a non-banking financial company, but it did not meet the criteria.

Saradha has numerous companies, some that are registered with the Registrar of Companies are just shell companies. Among the major ones are, however, Saradha Realty, Saradha Construction, Saradha Tours & Travels.

Saradha became a household name when it surfaced in the media space around 2009 through Channel 10, a Bengali news channel. In 2010, he launched an English daily, Bengal Post, and a Bengali daily, Sakalbela. The expansion was rapid and till he folded all the media arms, he owned at least 10.

Yet, there are few employees who met him, even fewer can claim to know him. Even senior of the  editorial staff of the Saradha have hardly met him once in the past few years. He maintained a low profile, gave instructions that none of the media vehicles should carry his picture, and kept a hands-off policy.  Trinamool Congress MP, Kunal Ghosh, who was the Saradha group media CEO, was the face of the media business.

A senior CPI(M) leader said that Sudipta Sen is related to Bhudeb Sen, owner of Sanchayani Savings and Investment Company, which went bust.

Agents of Saradha’s collective investment schemes claim that he was soft-spoken and quite a charmer.  Of course, the ones who claim are among the few who got a chance to meet him at the annual agents’ meet.

Saradha group’s website doesn’t have any picture of Sudipta Sen. Ironically, the only picture on the chairman and managing director’s page, is an empty chair.