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Demanding Suvendu Adhikari’s arrest; TMC to take to streets, meet Dhankhar
The TMC stepped up its attack against the BJP since Friday while targeting Adhikari after Sudipta Sen, owner of the blacklisted Saradha chit fund company, accused the BJP leader of accepting money and blackmailing him in the past
The ruling Trinamool Congress in West Bengal will hit the streets on Monday and a party delegation is also expected to meet Governor Jagdeep Dhankhar on Tuesday, demanding the arrest of Suvendu Adhikari, leader of the opposition in the state Legislative Assembly, in connection with the Saradha chit fund scam case.
An eight-member TMC delegation led by state education minister Bratya Basu is likely to meet Governor Dhankhar on Tuesday morning.
“On Monday a protest will be organised outside the office of the Central Bureau of Investigation at the CGO complex in Salt Lake. There will be protest rallies at Contai and Haldia too,” said Kunal Ghosh, TMC spokesperson.
The TMC stepped up its attack against the BJP since Friday while targeting Adhikari after Sudipta Sen, owner of the blacklisted Saradha chit fund company, accused the BJP leader of accepting money and blackmailing him in the past.
“If CBI claims that it is a neutral investigating agency then it should immediately arrest Suvendu Adhikari. Sen has named Adhikari multiple times in the prisoner’s petition and how the latter blackmailed him. Despite all these why hasn’t Adhikari been arrested?” said Tapas Roy, TMC spokesperson.
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.
“Suvendu Adhikari took lakhs of rupees. He also used to blackmail me,” Sen could be seen telling reporters in a video clip that was shown by the TMC on Friday.
This is, however, not the first time that Sen had 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.
“TMC supremo Mamata Banerjee lost to me by 1956 votes in the assembly elections. The wound is still fresh and hence the TMC is taking such counter actions. All these won’t affect me. It would just increase my TRP. They can go wherever they want including the Governor,” said Adhikari.
Adhikari who was a former minister in the Mamata Banerjee administration sided with the BJP in December 2020 ahead of the state assembly elections.
The Saradha group scam, which began to unravel in the first quarter of 2013, when investors demonstrated in front of the TMC office demanding the government take action against the group’s officials for defaulting on payments, finally blew up in April 2013 when the chairman of the group that ran the ponzi scheme, Sudipta Sen and the company’s executive director Debjani Mukherjee, were arrested.
The Saradha scam generated great controversy since some TMC leaders who were allegedly involved with the scam were arrested. The list includes Madan Mitra, former state transport minister, Ghosh, and Srinjoy Bose, former Rajya Sabha MP.
