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ED summons TMC youth wing chief Saayoni Ghosh in school recruitment case
Saayoni Ghosh has been asked to appear before ED officers at their Kolkata office at 11am on June 30
KOLKATA: The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has summoned Trinamool Congress (TMC) youth wing president Saayoni Ghosh to its Kolkata office on June 30 for questioning in the school recruitment case, people familiar with the matter said.
Ghosh, a Bengali actress with no political background, succeeded TMC national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee as state president of the youth wing in June 2021.
“Her name surfaced several times during the interrogation of a former TMC youth wing leader who is now in custody. Ghosh has been asked to bring her income tax returns for the last 10 years along with property-related documents and bank records,” said an ED official said who asked not to be named.
News agency PTI said Ghosh has been asked to appear before ED officers at their city office at 11am on June 30.
Saayoni Ghosh could not be reached for comments.
On May 20, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) questioned Abhishek Banerjee for nearly 10 hours in connection with the recruitment case. Banerjee was interrogated after his name was mentioned by Kuntal Ghosh, a former TMC state general secretary who was arrested by ED on January 21. Ghosh was expelled from TMC two months after his arrest.
On May 30, ED arrested Sujaykrishna Bhadra, a prime suspect who claimed to be an employee of Banerjee.
Bhadra is suspected to be involved in huge monetary transactions by three companies to launder proceeds from crimes.Bhadra told reporters on March 23 that Abhishek Banerjee “is my boss”. “Since he cannot be touched by anyone, the agencies are targeting other people. It won’t help.”
Bhadra added that CBI questioned him in the coal smuggling case as well.
TMC Rajya Sabha member Santanu Sen linked the ED move to the panchayat elections in July. “The federal agencies are taking forward the political vendetta of the Bharatiya Janata Party. Important TMC leaders are being summoned one after another because the panchayat polls will be held on July 8,” said Sen.
Leader of the opposition in the Bengal assembly, BJP’s Suvendu Adhikari said, “Why summon Ghosh and not arrest her instead? She received expensive property from Kuntal Ghosh.”
Bengal Congress president Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury said, “It is widely known that only the corrupt can rise in the TMC.”
In May 2022, justice Abhijit Gangopadhyay of the Calcutta high court ordered CBI to probe the appointment of non-teaching staff (Group C and D) and teaching staff by the West Bengal School Service Commission and West Bengal Board of Secondary Education between 2014 and 2021. The appointees allegedly paid bribes in the range of ₹5-15 lakh to get jobs after failing the selection tests.
The suspected involvement of TMC leaders surfaced when the ED arrested education minister Partha Chatterjee and his aide Arpita Mukherjee in July 2022. Chief minister Mamata Banerjee later dropped Chatterjee from her cabinet and suspended him from the TMC.
Jiban Krishna Saha, the TMC legislator from Burwan in Murshidabad district, was arrested by CBI on April 17.
Manik Bhattacharya, the legislator from Palashipara in Nadia district and former president of the primary education board, was arrested by ED in October last year.
