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Bengal BJP leader Dilip Ghosh censured by party brass after his attack on CBI
BJP leaders said party chief JP Nadda called up Bengal leader Dilip Ghosh on Monday evening over his attacks on CBI. Ghosh on Sunday alleged a nexus between TMC leaders and some CBI officers
KOLKATA: Bharatiya Janata Party national president JP Nadda has censured the party’s former West Bengal unit president Dilip Ghosh for back-to-back comments against the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and alleging a nexus between a section of the federal agency’s officers and leaders of the state’s ruling Trinamool Congress (TMC), BJP leaders aware of the development said.
Nadda called up Ghosh on Monday evening and told him not to make such remarks in public.
This is the second time since May that Ghosh has been pulled up for his comments.
The sharp message from the party’s central leadership comes after Ghosh, first on Sunday, told a gathering at an event that the Union finance ministry was compelled to order a parallel probe by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) in several cases because CBI was not taking any action.
“There seems to be an understanding between some CBI officers and the accused. All people have certain demands. Some may be sold for a few thousand rupees while some may demand a crore. On seeing that no action was being taken, the finance ministry deployed ED to crack these cases,” Ghosh said, referring to multiple scams in which a number of prominent TMC leaders are suspects.
CBI is probing the Saradha chit fund case, the Narada case, the coal and cattle smuggling cases as well as the bribe-for-job case into which the high court ordered an inquiry.
TMC’s Birbhum district unit president Anubrata Mondal was arrested by CBI on August 11 in the cattle smuggling case. The ED is conducting a parallel probe into this. Former education minister Partha Chatterjee and his aide Arpita Mukherjee were arrested on July 23 by ED in the bribe-for-job case although it was CBI that was asked by the Calcutta high court to initiate the investigation.
On Monday, Ghosh questioned CBI’s role in the post-poll violence cases into which the Calcutta high court ordered a probe. “Around 60 of our workers have been killed since last year. What has the CBI done? I say what I observe,” said Ghosh.
After Nadda called him up, Ghosh was absent from a closed-door meeting attended by the head of the BJP’s national information technology cell, Amit Malviya, who is also in charge of the Bengal unit. The two-hour meeting was held at the BJP’s new office in Kolkata.
“Probably he was not aware of the meeting,” state BJP president Sukanta Majumdar said.
Ghosh said he went to the party office to attend another meeting and stuck to his stand on CBI. He even accused citizens of Kolkata of turning a blind eye to corruption charges against TMC leaders.
“The so-called educated and intelligent people of Kolkata are not bothered. They only look after their personal interests. That is why the BJP never won an election in the city,” Ghosh said on Tuesday.
In May, the BJP national leadership censured Ghosh for his statements critical of other party leaders in the state and told him to “refrain” from speaking about his colleagues in the state or elsewhere.
Ghosh, 57, the Lok Sabha member from Midnapore, was made a national vice-president in September last year when Balurghat Lok Sabha member Sukanta Majumdar, 42, succeeded him as state president. It was during Ghosh’s tenure as state party chief that the BJP party wrested 18 of Bengal’s 42 Lok Sabha seats in 2019. In the Bengal state elections in 2021, the party could only win 75 of the 294 assembly seats.
The TMC took potshots at the BJP after Ghosh was censured for the second time.
“We may think of opening our doors for Ghosh if he resigns from his party. The BJP is definitely a divided house. Ghosh is having trouble there,” said TMC Lok Sabha member Saugata Roy.
