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Arrest me, see what happens: Mamata Banerjee to BJP
West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee dismissed the allegations of an exponential rise in assets of her relatives in the last few years and dared the BJP to have her arrested
West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee on Monday dismissed the allegations of an exponential rise in assets of her relatives in the last few years and dared the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to have her arrested.
The Trinamool Congress (TMC) chairperson also vowed to defeat the BJP in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.
“We will fight. We will win. We will evict the BJP. The fight for Delhi is my last fight,” Banerjee said while addressing a rally organised to celebrate the TMC student wing’s foundation day. “To save Bengal is my first fight. I promise that in 2024 we will evict the BJP from the Centre.”
On Monday, lawyer Arijit Majumdar filed a petition in the Calcutta high court alleging that since 2011, when the TMC first came to power in Bengal, there has been an exponential rise in the wealth of Banerjee’s family. The public interest litigation (PIL) also demanded a probe by the central agencies in the allegations.
“Several properties were found in the name of the family members of Mamata Banerjee and strangely all those were purchased and acquired after 2013, the year Ponzi scheme rackets were busted in the state,” claimed Tarunjyoti Tewari, advocate and Majumdar’s counsel.
Reacting sharply to the allegations, the TMC chief said all her relatives live separately and added that she does not even take the due pension as a former Lok Sabha MP or salary as the chief minister.
“Someone told me they have filed a case against me, saying the assets of Mamata Banerjee and her family members have exponentially increased in the past few years,” she said. “All my relatives have nuclear families, and we only celebrate festivals together. My mother was my only responsibility.”
“For the past 12 years, I have forfeited a monthly pension of ₹1 lakh as a former MP. Even as a chief minister, I have given up the monthly remuneration,” she said. “I stay at my own place, which was given to me by my father.”
She alleged that the BJP was planning to arrest TMC leaders hoping for electoral gains.
“They (BJP) plan to arrest TMC leaders including Firhad Hakim, Abhishek Banerjee, Arup Biswas, Moloy Ghatak and Chandrima Bhattacharya, ahead of the elections hoping they would defeat the TMC. I say arrest me too,” the TMC chief said. “If they arrest me, they will understand their mistak.”
The high court is already hearing a PIL demanding CBI probe into disproportionate properties of at least 19 TMC leaders. Recently, another petition was filed alleging abnormal rise in properties of at least 21 senior state BJP leaders.
Banerjee also attacked the BJP alleging that central agencies and “ill-gotten money of the party” were being used to dislodge elected state governments run by non-BJP parties.
“You (BJP) dislodged Maharashtra government. Where did the money come from? You wanted to bring down the Jharkhand government. I prevented it,” she claimed. “Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal said that they (BJP) made a plan of ₹800 crore to destabilise his government. To bring down the West Bengal government, they are using ED (Enforcement Directorate) and CBI (Central Bureau of Investigation).”
The chief minister warned that even the state police could lodge corruption cases against officials of central investigating agencies and personnel of central forces and initiate legal actions against them.
“Abhishek Banerjee (party MP and the CM’s nephew) gave a good speech today. I hope not he is summoned by a central agency tomorrow. He and his wife were summoned earlier. Now I suppose the central agencies would summon his two-year-old child too,” she said.
The BJP, however, rubbished the charges saying the investigations were launched on the orders of the high court.
“The BJP has nothing to do with the probe. They were ordered by the Calcutta high court,” said Samik Bhattacharya, Bengal BJP spokesperson. “If the TMC thinks that they are being targeted and harassed they may move court.”
