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Is CBI hesitant to probe Mamata Banerjee, Suvendu Adhikari asks PM in letter
The Saradha group of companies allegedly duped lakhs of people to the tune of ₹2,500 crore, promising higher rates of return on their investments.
KOLKATA: Leader of the opposition in the West Bengal assembly Suvendu Adhikari wrote a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday, saying that the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) appears reluctant to probe chief minister Mamata Banerjee’s role in the Saradha chit fund scam.
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader alleged that Banerjee is a beneficiary of the chit fund operation. The Saradha group of companies allegedly duped lakhs of people to the tune of ₹2,500 crore, promising higher rates of return on their investments. The case, which was first investigated by the state police in 2013, was handed over to CBI by the Supreme Court in 2014.
Adhikari sent the letter a day after nine opposition leaders including Banerjee wrote to PM Modi that CBI, Enforcement Directorate (ED) and other federal agencies were being misused to target opposition leaders. Their letter alleged that these agencies stop probing suspects the moment they join the BJP.
Sunday’s letter named Suvendu Adhikari as one of the leaders who was investigated by ED and CBI in the Narada sting operation case as long as he was in the Trinamool Congress (TMC). Adhikari left the TMC and joined the BJP in December 2020.
In his five-page letter to PM Modi on Monday, Adhikari said: “Mamata Banerjee’s association with the Saradha chit fund goes back to the days when she was not the chief minister of West Bengal. In fact, she was the Union railway minister in the UPA-2 government”.
Adhikari said a CBI probe earlier revealed that a Saradha group firm, Saradha Tours and Travels, bagged a tourism project contract with the Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation Limited (IRCTC) as part of the Bharat Tirth scheme launched in 2010-11.
Adhikari also alleged that Sudipta Sen, the Saradha group owner who is now in judicial custody, purchased a painting by Banerjee for ₹1.8 crore.
Adhikari said CBI was expected to nail the person occupying the highest position in the system.
“The person is none other than Mamata Banerjee… Is this why the CBI is hesitant? Or, has the weight of her chair made them reluctant to act against her?” he wrote.
To be sure, Sudipta Sen was arrested by the Bengal police from Kashmir in 2013 when he went underground after the Saradha case was exposed.
In June 2021, Sidupta Sen alleged in a letter to a judicial magistrate that he gave money to Bengal Congress president Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury as well as Adhikari and his younger brother, Soumendu, when both were in the TMC. Sen also named Mukul Roy, who joined the BJP in 2017 but returned to the TMC in 2021, as a recipient of funds from the Saradha group.
TMC state general secretary Kunal Ghosh, who is also an accused in the Saradha case, targeted Adhikari saying he was not being touched by the CBI because he joined BJP.
Ghosh said: “It is well known that Adhikari and his brother extorted from Sudipta Sen when they were in TMC. The Saradha group had set up operations in East Midnapore district. Are the CBI and ED not touching him because he is now a BJP leader?”
Suvendu Adhikari’s father, Sisir Adhikari, and another brother, Dibyendu Adhikari, are TMC Lok Sabha members from Contai and Tamluk constituencies respectively.
Kunal Ghosh, who was a TMC Rajya Sabha member and headed the Saradha Group’s media division, was arrested by the Bengal police in November 2013. He was in judicial custody for two years before being released on bail.`
