Scam accused Partha Chatterjee’s poll affidavits showed he got poorer over years
According to the poll affidavits filed by scam accused Partha Chatterjee before the West Bengal assembly elections, he had only ₹1.48 lakh cash in hand at the time of filing nomination in March 2021
West Bengal industry minister and Trinamool Congress (TMC) secretary general Partha Chatterjee, who was arrested by the Enforcement Directorate on Saturday in connection with the multi-crore recruitment scam in government schools, has been getting poorer over the years, according to the affidavits filed by him before the election commission. He had only ₹1.48 lakh cash in hand at the time of filing nomination for the assembly election in March 2021, the affidavits claimed.
ED on Friday seized ₹21.9 crore cash, gold worth more than ₹70 lakh and USD worth more than ₹50 lakh from a flat that belonged to Arpita Mukherjee, a model who later became a close aide of the minister. The federal agency has told the court that the huge amount of cash seized from the house of Arpita Mukherjee was the proceeds of the recruitment scam.
The affidavits filed by Chatterjee before contesting the state assembly elections in 2011, 2016 and 2021, claim that his annual income as reflected in Income Tax Returns dropped to around half over the last 10 years.
His total annual income was ₹11.64 lakh in 2010-11. The TMC came to power for the first time in May 2011. Since then Chatterjee’s annual income has been declining. According to the affidavit filed before the 2016 assembly polls his annual income dropped to ₹7.83 lakh in 2015-16.
The last affidavit which he filed ahead of the 2021 assembly polls shows that his total annual income in 2019-20 as reflected in Income Tax Returns came down to ₹5.39 lakh, which is less than ₹45,000 per month.
At the time of filing the nomination in March 2021, he had just ₹1.48 lakh cash in hand, a two-and-a-half-storey house worth ₹25 lakh, mutual funds which he purchased with his provident fund and some policies. The minister’s sources of income are salary and interest from bank, said his last affidavit.
“The ED has not seized any cash from Chatterjee’s house. They have seized only some documents,” Anindya Kishor Routh, Chatterjee’s counsel told the court.
Arpita Mukherjee was also arrested on Saturday. Both are in ED custody now and the agency plans to question them by making them sit face-to-face with each other.
ED said that huge amount of money were allegedly collected from job aspirants to recruit them as teachers and non-teaching staff in government schools through fraudulent means when Chatterjee was the state education minister between 2014 and 2021.
“Investigation has revealed that Chatterjee and Mukherjee were in regular contact. They were found involved in money laundering and criminal conspiracy. The cash which was seized from the flat was nothing but proceeds of the crime (scam),” ED told the court.
People familiar with the matter said that Arpita has reportedly told ED that Chatterjee used to stack money in her flat and that only the minister and his men had access to the room where the cash was found.
Her lawyer Niladri Bhattacharya, however, said he has no knowledge as he has not been able to contact with Mukherjee since Monday.
The TMC has already distanced itself from Chatterjee saying that the party has nothing to do with the money and Arpita was not a party worker.
“There will be action if anyone commits a crime and it is proved in the court. The central agencies are being used to tarnish the image of Opposition parties and gag them. This is worse than the British-rule. The BJP won’t return at the Centre in 2024. If you ask me questions like how, what’s the mathematics and where will the seats go, I won’t be able to tell you,” said chief minister Mamata Banerjee while speaking at a government program on Monday.
