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Fake bank account? Turncoat TMC MP Sisir Adhikari writes to Sitharaman
The Adhikari family wields considerable influence in Bengal’s Purba Medinipur district. In the 2021 state assembly elections, Suvendu defeated chief minister and TMC supremo Mamata Banerjee by 1956 votes from Nandigram
A fake account was allegedly opened in the name of Sisir Adhikari, father of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) legislator Suvendu Adhikari, at a Nationalized bank in West Bengal’s Purba Medinipur district.
Amid this, the Trinamool Congress (TMC) turncoat and still an MP from Kanthi in Medinipur district on Saturday wrote to union finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman apprehending that it could be a ploy to malign him.
“I apprehend there might be a fake account opened in my name to malign me and put me in trouble. I request you to initiate an enquiry into the matter and cancel the said account,” Sisir said in his letter to the finance minister.
The incident came to light after Sisir received a letter from the Indian Overseas Bank on Friday thanking him for opening the savings bank account at the Machnan branch in Purba Medinipur. Adhikari resides in the same district.
He said, “I reside at Kanthi subdivisional town and have never opened any account with the said branch of the Indian Overseas Bank.”
This comes at a time when the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), probing the cattle smuggling scam, found that ‘fake bank accounts’ were allegedly used to launder money which was generated from the multi-crore scam.
“Sisir Adhikari is still officially with the TMC. His son, however, has joined the BJP and is the leader of the opposition. The bank where the account was opened is a Nationalized bank. It could be that he is under pressure from the BJP to join the party and they are hatching plans to blackmail him,” Jay Prakash Majumdar, TMC’s state vice president, told the media.
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Notably, the TMC has already written to Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla seeking Sisir’s disqualification as the MP.
Sisir Adhikari was elected to the Lok Sabha in 2019 on a TMC ticket but joined the BJP in the run-up to the 2021 West Bengal assembly polls.
Whereas, his son, Suvendu, a former minister in the Mamata Banerjee government, joined the BJP in December 2020 ahead of the state assembly polls in 2021.
The Adhikari family wields considerable influence in Bengal’s Purba Medinipur district. In the 2021 state assembly elections, Suvendu defeated chief minister and TMC supremo Mamata Banerjee by 1956 votes from Nandigram.
