More Money Found in West Bengal SSC Scam Case as BJP Claims 38 TMC MLAs are “In Touch” with the Party
Manas Dasgupta
NEW DELHI, July 27: The Enforcement Directorate is claimed to have found “another stack” of cash from the residence of the arrested West Bengal minister Partha Chatterjee’s close aide Arpita Mukherjee who in her detention is also claimed to have told the investigators that the minister used her residence as a “mini bank” and that she never had access to the money dumped.
Even when the Trinamool Congress is facing embarrassment over the minister held on the charges of corruption and money laundering, the BJP leader and a prominent Bengali and Hindi film actor Mithun Chakraborty amidst apprehensions of an attempt to topple the Mamata Banerjee government, claimed on Wednesday that at least 38 TMC members were “in touch” with the BJP with 21 of them being in “direct contact with him.
The Trinamool Congress, however, has dismissed Chakraborty’s claim and said he was “not in the right frame of mind.” “So many BJP leaders have defected to the TMC and if the doors are kept open, then more BJP legislators will join our party. I don’t want to give any importance to such claims as it is far from reality,” Trinamool MP Santanu Sen said.
The ED sources said on Wednesday that another stack of cash had been recovered from the house of Arpita Mukherjee — the aide of Bengal’s arrested minister Partha Chatterjee — days after a huge pile of notes was found in one room of the house. This time, officials of the ED found the notes from a shelf, sources said. Bank officials have been asked to rush to the spot with note counting machines.
Sources say the ED also found more documents on Wednesday that are being examined. During last week’s raid, the officials have recovered a diary with around 40 pages of notes that could provide crucial leads in the investigation. The ED has also recovered several deeds of properties that could implicate Partha Chatterjee.
Partha Chatterjee and Arpita Mukherjee were arrested on Saturday — a day after ₹ 21 crore was discovered from the house. He will be in the custody of the investigating agency till August 3. Arpita Mukherjee has reportedly told investigators that the money was kickback from the state’s massive teacher recruitment scam.
She is also claimed to have said all the cash was stocked in a room to which only Partha Chatterjee and his men had the access. The money was always carried to her house by his men and never personally by Partha Chatterjee who used to come to her house once a week or 10 days, she is claimed to have told the ED. “Partha used my house and that of another woman as a mini-bank. That other woman is also his close friend,” Arpita Mukherjee reportedly told investigators.
Partha Chatterjee — the senior-most minister in Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s cabinet and her close aide — has been accused of having a role in allegedly illegal appointments of school teachers and staff in government-run schools when he was Education Minister.
Arpita Mukherjee’s lawyers are likely to contest the ED’s claims quoting Arpita during the next hearing in the court and have hit out at the agency for leaking details of their investigation to the media and pointed out the lack of convictions in cases by central agencies.
Investigators had found ₹ 21 crore in cash from the home of Arpita Mukherjee, a former actor-model and a close aide of the minister. Visuals of a large pile of cash at her home emerged a day before she and Partha Chatterjee were arrested on Saturday.
She claimed, according to sources, that the minister never revealed how much money there was in the room. Arpita Mukherjee told them that she was introduced to Partha Chatterjee by a Bengali actor and that the two had been close since 2016. Sources claim she admitted that the money came from kickbacks received for transfers and for helping colleges get recognition. And that the money was always brought by others, never the minister.
The Enforcement Directorate has reportedly found incriminating documents. The agency alleges that the minister was in contact with Ms Mukherjee and that the cash found in her home was “proceeds of crime.” Sources say the ED also recovered an incriminating diary with around 40 pages of notes that could provide crucial leads in the investigation. The ED has also recovered several deeds of properties that could implicate Partha Chatterjee.
A couple of days after Mamata Banerjee said she had “information” that the BJP was trying to topple her government in West Bengal and deploy more central agencies to carry out the operation, the prominent actor who had joined the BJP only last year just before the state Assembly elections, claimed that 38 Trinamool MLAs were in touch with his party and 21 are in “direct contact” with him. The comments come days after Mamata Banerjee accused the BJP of planning an “Operation Lotus” in Bengal to try and upend her government.
“Do you want to hear breaking news? At this moment, as we are sitting here, 38 Trinamool Congress MLAs have very good ties with us, of which 21 are in direct (contact with me). I leave the rest to you to figure out,” the actor-turned-politician told reporters in Kolkata. When pressed for answers, Mithun Chakraborty said: “Don’t ask me to release the trailer, enjoy the music.”
Just two days ago, Mamata Banerjee had thrown a challenge to the BJP, referring to the fall of the Uddhav Thackeray government in Maharashtra after a revolt in the Shiv Sena in which the BJP played a supporting role.
The Bengal Chief Minister said she had heard her state was next on the BJP’s agenda.
“Maharashtra has not been able to fight this time. They say after Maharashtra it will be Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand and Bengal. Try coming here. You will have to cross the Bay of Bengal. The crocodiles will bite you. And in the Sunderbans the Royal Bengal tiger will bite you. In North Bengal the elephants will roll over you,” she said.
Ms Banerjee has accused the BJP of trying every means to bring her down in Bengal. Last year, she won a third term in Bengal after fighting off a tough challenge from the BJP, which had invested all its resources and its top leaders in the state election campaign. Chakraborty had joined the BJP with much fanfare but failed to make enough impact with the electorate to take the BJP anywhere close to the required numbers in spite of his huge popularity in Bengal as a film star. Of late, Mithun Chakraborty has been seen at the BJP office holding meetings.
