Kunal Ghosh fires fresh salvo at TMC

Firing a fresh salvo at his party, suspended Trinamool Congress Rajya Sabha MP Kunal Ghosh demanded Saradha Scam mastermind Sudipta Sen disclose the names of nine people who benefitted from him and threatened to spill the beans if he did not.

Apparently firing a fresh salvo at his party, suspended Trinamool Congress Rajya Sabha MP Kunal Ghosh on Thursday demanded Saradha Scam mastermind Sudipta Sen disclose the names of nine people who benefitted from him and threatened to spill the beans if he did not.

Amid speculation that he may soon be arrested, the journalistturned-politician was questioned for six hours by the police for the fifth time over the last 12 days, in connection with the multi-crore Saradha chit fund scam.

Emerging from the Bidhannagar police commissionerate, which is probing the scandal, after the marathon interrogation session, Ghosh claimed a letter purportedly written by Sen to the CBI where his name figured was actually a “conspiracy”.

“I feel the letter that is being branded as Sen’s letter to the CBI seems unnatural. It is the script of a conspiracy. There are lots of incongruencies. Police must unearth all the this,” said Ghosh, who was suspended by the Trinamool Congress on September 28 on disciplinary grounds. Bidhannagar Police commissioner Rajiv Kumar said that since Ghosh was the Group CEO, he used to handle many files concerning many issues.

“That’s why, my officers are taking time to extract information during interrogation,” Kumar said.

Kumar, who visited the state secretariat to attend a high-level meeting convened by chief minister Mamata Banerjee, avoided a question if there was any possibility of Ghosh being arrested. Chief Secretary Sanjay Mitra, Director General of Police GMP Rajasekhar Reddy and Kolkata Police Commissioner Surajit Kar Purakayastha were also present.

Ghosh requested Sen to cooperate with the police.

“There are nine people who benefited from you and who had maintained contact with you. You must come out with the names. If you do not, if you have problems, I will have to make the names public.”

On his arrival, Ghosh maintained he would cooperate with police to the best of his ability.

Asked whether he was apprehensive of being arrested, Ghosh said, “This entire matter is the responsibility of police. There is no scope for speculation and apprehension on my part, so on this I cannot say anything.” On the frequent interrogation -five times since September 21, including twice when he was called from Delhi, Ghosh said it is only a “matter of coincidence”.

He evaded a response to a question whether he thought the administration was behind his recurrent quizzing sessions by police.