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After ED summons Shiv Sena’s Sanjay Raut, Mamata steps up attack against BJP
The TMC upped its ante against rival BJP since Friday, while choosing Adhikari as the main target, after Sudipta Sen, owner of the blacklisted Saradha chit fund company, accused the BJP leader of accepting money and blackmailing him in the past
West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee stepped up her attack against the Bharatiya Janata Party–led Centre on Monday after Shiv Sena leader and Rajya Sabha member Sanjay Raut was summoned by the Enforcement Directorate.
“The BJP is doing anything it feels like. CBI and ED are unleashed on those who dare to speak the truth. Property of a Shiv Sena leader has been attached by the ED, I got to know today. Can a country or a democracy run like this? Why should you (the BJP) frighten somebody? People are living in fear. Many have left the country. Why should people live in fear?” she asked.
Raut, who is among those in the forefront of the battle for the survival of the Uddhav Thackeray government, said he will not back down.
Last week the ED had attached properties worth ₹78 crore of Shiv Sena leader, Arjun Khotkar in an alleged case of money laundering.
The ruling Trinamool Congress staged protests at multiple sites in West Bengal demanding the immediate arrest of Suvendu Adhikari, BJP leader and leader of the opposition in the state Legislative Assembly.
TMC leaders including Babul Supriyo, former Union minister-of-state who quit the BJP and sided with the TMC in September 2021 and Kunal Ghosh, the party’s state general secretary, led the protest outside the office of the Central Bureau of Investigation at the CGO complex in Salt Lake. Protest rallies were also organised in Contai and Haldia. TMC workers shouted ‘go back’ slogans while Adhikari’s convoy was passing in Cooch Behar.
The TMC upped its ante against rival BJP since Friday, while choosing Adhikari as the main target, after Sudipta Sen, owner of the blacklisted Saradha chit fund company, accused the BJP leader of accepting money and blackmailing him in the past.
Sen, who was arrested in 2013 and is presently lodged in the Presidency correctional home in Kolkata, purportedly sent a prisoner’s petition to the city’s chief metropolitan magistrate on June 18 making the allegations.
This is, however, not the first time that Sen made such allegations against opposition leaders. In December 2020, he had written a similar letter in which he had alleged that he had given crores of rupees to political leaders from BJP, CPIM and the Congress. Sen wrote a similar open letter in 2013. It was a seven-page handwritten note in which he said that he was used as a pawn by politicians and influential people who wanted his money and resources.
“Actually the TMC is unable to digest the humiliation after the party’s chief Mamata Banerjee lost to me by 1956 votes in the 2021 assembly elections. All these won’t affect me. It will just increase my TRP,” said Adhikari.
An eight-member TMC delegation led by state education minister Bratya Basu is likely to meet Governor Dhankhar on Tuesday morning.
Banerjee on Monday also demanded that the retirement age of Agniveer-recruits in the defence forces through the Agnipath scheme be raised to 60 years.
“The BJP says that youths will be imparted training for six months (in the army) and then get an appointment for just four years. What will they do after four years? This has been done keeping in mind the 2024 Lok Sabha polls. We demand that the retirement age should be raised to 60 years. It may be raised to 65 years if needed,” said Banerjee while speaking at a program in Burdwan district on Monday.
Since a new short-term recruitment scheme for the armed forces was announced by the government earlier this month, the country has been rocked by violent protests. Under the scheme, Agnipath, men and women between 17.5 and 21 will be inducted for four years in the three services, after which a quarter will be retained.
