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Bengal police move against Opposition leader Suvendu Adhikari’s brothers
The cases against West Bengal Opposition leader Suvendu Adhikari’s brothers pertain to alleged irregularities in the functioning of their local municipality before 2021, when the Adhikaris controlled the civic body
The West Bengal police have initiated fresh probes against two brothers of leader of the Opposition in the state assembly Suvendu Adhikari in connection with alleged irregularities in the functioning of their local municipality before 2021, officials said on Wednesday.
Suvendu’s brothers, Soumendu Adhikari, who joined the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in 2021, and Dibyendu Adhikari, a Trinamool Congress (TMC) member of Parliament (MP) from Tamluk in East Midnapore, and his wife, Sutapa, were summoned by the police on Monday. None of them responded to the summons.
Police officials from East Midnapore district’s Kanthi, the home town of the Adhikari family for more than a century, said cases have been registered in connection with alleged irregularities in the functioning of the local municipality before 2021, when the Adhikaris controlled the civic body.
Their father, Sisir Adhikari, a Lok Sabha member of the TMC, was the Kanthi muncipality chairman for around 20 years, even when he was in the Congress, before stepping down in 2005. Suvendu Adhikari held the post from 2006 to 2010. Soumendu succeeded him and controlled the civic body till 2020. Dibyendu was a councillor at Kanthi municipality and also the local legislator before becoming an MP in 2016.
The police complaint was lodged by TMC’s Subal Manna, the current municipality chairman, who was elected in the state-wide civic polls held in February-March this year. The election ended the Adhikari family’s control over the Kanthi municipality. The case against them pertains to installation of street lights in Kanthi town and setting up of shops on one part of a land allotted for a modern crematorium equipped with electric furnace.
Police officials said a man named Gopal Singh, who used to work as a driver for Soumendu Adhikari, Suvendu’s youngest brother, was arrested on Monday along with Ashok Shaw, a former employee of a building contractor, in connection with an alleged scam involving allotment of stalls to shopkeepers at the site earmarked for the crematorium. Singh and Shaw are both residents of Kanthi.
Soumendu Adhikari could not be contacted but a member of the family said on condition of anonymity that he moved the Calcutta high court after the complaint was lodged and the court granted him immunity from arrest till July 13.
Talking to HT, Dibyendu Adhikari said: “I am still a TMC MP and my wife is a homemaker. We have full faith in the Calcutta high court.”
Sisir Adhikari, 80, the Lok Sabha member from the Kanthi constituency, said: “Those who control the police department can always use it to create pressure.”
The TMC moved the office of Lok Sabha speaker Om Birla in 2021 seeking Sisir Adhikari’s disqualification as MP under anti-defection law as he was seen at a BJP rally.
Suvendu Adhikari joined the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in December 2020, months before the assembly polls in which he defeated chief minister Mamata Banerjee from East Midnapore’s Nandigram, the seat he won for the TMC in 2016. Banerjee was elected in a by-election at Kolkata’s Bhawanipore, her old seat.
In another development, a lawyer, Ramaprasad Sarkar, filed a public interest litigation (PIL) at the Calcutta high court on Wednesday demanding Suvendu Adhikari’s interrogation by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) in the Saradha chit fund case.
Though Suvendu Adhikari is named in the first information report (FIR) in this case, he has been spared by the central agency, the petitioner claimed. The Lawyer said the petition may be heard next week.
TMC state general secretary Kunal Ghosh said the allegation of vindictive action leveled by BJP against his party are baseless.
“The law is taking its own course. It is the BJP that targets specific people and uses central probe agencies against them. The Bengal police did not target the Adhikaris intentionally. Their names came up during the investigations,” said Ghosh.
These are not the only criminal cases lodged against the Adhikari brothers. The first case, involving alleged theft of relief material meant for flood victims, was filed against Suvendu and Soumendu in 2021. They moved the high court, alleging harassment by the police.
The state government is also probing the operations of several cooperative banks in which Suvendu Adhikari was member of the managing boards. In June last year, the government started the process of removing him from the boards of several cooperative banks in East Midnapore.
Also, the state criminal investigation department (CID) is probing the death of one of Suvendu Adhikari’s bodyguards, Shubhabrata Chakraborty, who died from gunshot injury in 2018. His family alleged foul play in 2021. The complaint was filed by the wife of the deceased.
