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CBI, ED to question TMC leaders, Abhishek Banerjee’s relatives in crucial cases
The agencies want to question education minister Partha Chatterjee, who is contesting from Behala West in south-west Kolkata, and former minister Madan Mitra, the nominee from Kamarhati in North 24 Parganas, in connection with the probe into two chit funds. They will be summoned next week.
With the eight-phase Bengal assembly polls only 19 days away, the ruling Trinamool Congress (TMC) on Friday found the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and Enforcement Directorate (ED) breathing down the neck of some of its prominent contestants.
The agencies want to question education minister Partha Chatterjee, who is contesting from Behala West in south-west Kolkata, and former minister Madan Mitra, the nominee from Kamarhati in North 24 Parganas, in connection with the probe into two chit funds. They will be summoned next week. ED officials said they, too, want to question Mitra.
Chatterjee is also the secretary general of the TMC and the state's parliamentary affairs minister.
Chatterjee is being summoned in connection with the probe into the I-Core chit fund company, while Mitra is a suspect in the Saradha chit fund case. Mitra was arrested in 2014. He unsuccessfully contested the 2016 assembly polls from inside the jail.
Significantly, the CBI also wants to question a non-political person, Ankush Arora, the brother-in-law of chief minister Mamata Banerjee’s nephew Abhishek Banerjee. CBI officials questioned Arora’s wife Maneka Gambhir and Abhishek Banerjee’s wife, Rujira, a few days ago in connection with a coal smuggling case.
Ankush Arora’s father, Pawan Arora, has also been summoned to the CBI office on March 15, agency officials said. No member of the Arora family could be contacted.
TMC leaders reacted sharply to the development, saying they were being targeted because of the elections.
“Using probe agencies against prominent political adversaries is not something new. We have seen this happening in other states. It will have no effect in Bengal because people know the BJP very well,” said deputy parliamentary affairs minister Tapas Roy.
“One cannot scare an honest man. They can do whatever they want. This is being done because of the elections,” Chatterjee, who took part in a campaign rally in his constituency on Friday, said. “I have not received the summons yet,” he added.
Mitra was not available for comment as he was busy in a roadshow.
Kunal Ghosh, one of the spokespersons of the TMC and an accused in the Saradha case, has already been summoned by the ED twice over the past two weeks.
On February 21, Mamata Banerjee reacted in public for the first time after the CBI sent summons to Rujira Banerjee.
“A tiger cub is not scared of fighting cats and rats…We have stood before guns,” Banerjee retorted at a public event hours after the CBI visited the south Kolkata residence of her nephew and TMC Lok Sabha member Abhishek Banerjee and served notice to his wife for questioning in the coal smuggling case.
“Muscle flexing or threats of jail sentence cannot scare us. We have stood before guns in the past. We won’t be scared of fighting rats. I will not surrender as long as I am alive. You cannot break our spine. A tiger cub is not scared of cats and rats,” Banerjee said.
Abhishek Banerjee retaliated by taking to Twitter and saying that he will not be "cowed down".
“TMC leaders start seeing political vendetta whenever the CBI or ED probes a case but they did not hesitate to get involved in corruption,” BJP state vice-president Jay Prakash Majumdar said on Friday.
On December 31, the CBI raided three residences of businessman and TMC’s youth front general secretary Vinay Mishra in connection with the coal smuggling case. Mishra is missing since then and has been declared an absconder by the agency.
Abhishek Banerjee is the president of the TMC’s youth wing. On July 20, he appointed 15 general secretaries, including Mishra.
It is alleged that illegally mined coal, worth several thousand crores of rupees, have been sold in the black market over several years by a racket operating in the western parts of West Bengal where the Eastern Coalfields Limited runs several mines. Another prime suspect, Anup Majhi, alias Lala, is also absconding.
In early December, the CBI also raided the home and office of Ganesh Bagaria, a Kolkata-based chartered accountant. The homes and offices of three more businessmen have been raided since January.
The agency has not made any official statement before the media till date.
Ever since the probe started in September, the BJP has been alleging that the money from the sales was whitewashed through shell companies and siphoned into the funds of the ruling party. The BJP has also alleged that the main beneficiary is Abhishek Banerjee.
The ED on Friday questioned Samir Chakraborty, TMC's sitting MLA from Taldangra in Bankura district, for more than two hours in connection with an investment he made a few years ago into a news channel. "I will cooperate with the agency whenever it calls me," he said while leaving the ED office.
Chakraborty, a veteran leader, is not contesting the coming polls.
