'If ED can arrest Partha Chatterjee, why not Dharmendra Pradhan in NEET case?': Abhishek Banerjee

The NEET case is the ‘biggest scam’ of independent India, the Trinamool Congress general secretary claimed.

Published on: Jul 21, 2024, 20:39:02 IST

By HT News Desk, New Delhi

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Trinamool Congress (TMC) general secretary Abhishek Banerjee on Sunday wondered why BJP leader and Union education minister Dharmendra Pradhan is yet to be arrested for the NEET paper leaks, which the former described as the ‘biggest scam’ in independent India.

Kolkata, India - July 21, 2024: Trinamool Congress (TMC) National General Secretary Abhishek Banerjee addresses the party supporters during the TMC Martyr's Day rally at Esplanade on Sunday, July 21, 2024 in Kolkata, India. (Photo by Samir Jana/ Hindustan Times)

Banerjee pointed to the July 2022 arrest of Partha Chatterjee by the Enforcement Directorate (ED), a central agency, in connection with West Bengal's teacher recruitment case.

“A day after July 21, 2022, the ED raided Partha Chatterjee and arrested him. We do not shield anyone who makes mistakes,” the Trinamool leader asserted at the party's Martyrs' Day rally in Kolkata, held annually on July 21.

“We do not tolerate injustice. But if the central agencies can raid the house of Partha Chatterjee and arrest him for the SSC-TET scandal, why should Dharmendra Pradhan not be arrested for the NEET scam?” Banerjee asked.

“Why is the ED reluctant to probe the role of Dharmendra Pradhan? Why did a single raid not take place his residence? Why this political discrimination and hypocrisy?” he further questioned.

On July 28, 2022, days after his arrest, Partha Chatterjee was suspended from the TMC and removed from all ministerial posts in the West Bengal government, headed by Mamata Banerjee, the Trinamool supremo.

Meanwhile, reacting to the statement of Abhishek, who is the chief minister's nephew and Lok Sabha member from the state's Diamond Harbour constituency, Union minister Sukanta Majumdar, the West Bengal unit chief of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), accused him of ‘deliberately trying to confuse the people.’

"In SSC-TET scam, the involvement of the state had been proved by a court monitored probe. But in NEET the irregularities took place in one city and region and the BJP government at the Centre is assisting in the probe. The TMC government in West Bengal had tried every means to stall agency probes into recruitment scams in the past," Majumdar told reporters.

(With PTI inputs)

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