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BJP, TMC trade charges over fake Covid-19 jab drive, police form SIT
“Kolkata’s outgoing mayor and other senior leaders including ministers are associated with this. All persons who are linked to this man should be arrested. There should be a CBI probe,” said Dilip Ghosh, BJP’s state unit president.
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Friday demanded a probe by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) into the fake vaccination scam and the alleged links of the accused with the ruling Trinamool Congress (TMC) leaders after photographs of the accused with the top TMC leaders went viral.
“Kolkata’s outgoing mayor and other senior leaders including ministers are associated with this. All persons who are linked to this man should be arrested. There should be a CBI probe,” said Dilip Ghosh, BJP’s state unit president.
Dismissing the allegation, TMC leader and outgoing mayor Firhad Hakim, whose photo with the accused went viral, said: “It is not possible to check the credentials of each and every person you come across in a public programme.”
On June 23, the Kolkata Police busted a fake Covid-19 vaccination centre and arrested one Debanjan Deb (28), for posing as an IAS officer associated with the Kolkata Municipal Corporation and organising a few camps where at least 600 people, including Trinamool Congress MP Mimi Chakraborty, are suspected to have been inoculated. The number could rise. On Friday, the Kolkata Police formed a Special Investigation Team, headed by a deputy commissioner, to probe the case.
Soon after Deb’s arrest, pictures of him with TMC ministers, including Firhad Hakim, Subrata Mukherjee and others went viral, triggering a slugfest.
It was also found that the name of Deb, along with other TMC MPs, was engraved on the stone plaque of a bust of Rabindranath Tagore installed at a ward in Kolkata in February.
TMC has denied the presence of its leaders at the event.
