Manas Dasgupta
NEW DELHI, July 28: Embarrassed over the recovery of crores of rupees by the Enforcement Directorate as part of “proceeds of the School Service Commission (SSC) scam, the West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee was finally compelled to remove the commerce and industries minister Partha Chatterjee from her cabinet.
In an official order issued by the government on Thursday, it said the 70-year old Chatterjee had been relieved of all the departments he held in the Banerjee cabinet with immediate effect.
“Partha Chatterjee, minister in charge, department of industry, commerce and enterprises, department of information technology and electronics, department of parliamentary affairs and department of public enterprises and industrial reconstruction, is hereby relieved of his duties as MIC of the aforesaid department with immediate effect,” an official order said.
Banerjee later told media persons on the sidelines of an official event that for the time being she would look after all the portfolios Chatterjee held. She did not indicate the limit of “time being.”
His sacking from the cabinet comes after the ED recovered another about Rs 30 crores in cash and kind from the second residence of his close aide Arpita Mukherjee and was preparing to raid her third residence on Thursday. The ED had arrested Chatterjee, who is also the Trinamool Congress secretary-general, on July 23 after over Rs 20 crores recovered from Arpita’s another flat. The central agency has also arrested Arpita Mukherjee and seized crores of rupees from her houses in different parts of the city.
The ED sources said on Thursday that another house of Arpita Mukherjee was being searched, a day after the Enforcement Directorate found around ₹ 30 crore at her second flat on Wednesday. Officials arrived at an apartment at Kolkata’s Chinar Park along with Central Forces personnel. They were in the process of opening the locked flat to begin their search.
About ₹ 29 crore in cash and five kilograms of gold jewellery were found from the second flat of Arpita Mukherjee in Kolkata during a raid in connection with a school jobs scam. The probe agency officials left Arpita Mukherjee’s home in the Belgharia area of Kolkata early this morning with 10 trunks of cash after concluding the 18-hour raid. Sources say that ED officials used three note-counting machines to know the exact amount of cash seized from Ms Mukherjee’s second flat.
During last week’s raid, the probe agency officials had recovered ₹ 21 crore in cash, a huge amount of foreign exchange and gold bars worth ₹ 2 crore from Ms Mukherjee’s other flat in the city. They also found a diary with around 40 pages of notes that could provide crucial leads in the investigation.
So far, besides ₹ 50 crore in cash, “a huge amount” of foreign exchange and gold bars worth Rs 2 crore have been seized from Arpita Mukherjee’s two flats, said ED sources. The 30-year-old model, actor and popular Instagrammer owns at least three flats, they added.
Partha Chatterjee, who held the Industries portfolio until his sacking today, is accused of a role in illegal appointments of teachers and other staff in government-run schools when he was Education Minister in 2016. Arpita Mukherjee is claimed to have told the investigators that the money recovered from her residences were kept by Partha who had received the money as kickbacks for transfers and granting recognition to colleges.
Mamata Banerjee in Partha Chatterjee’s case had to tweak her earlier stance that the BJP-led central government was misusing agencies only to settle political scores with the opposition parties. “If anyone is found guilty, he or she must be punished,” she has said. “But I condemn any malicious campaign against me. The truth must come out, but within a timeframe.”
Party spokesperson Kunal Ghosh has also been switching positions. Just after Chatterjee’s arrest, Ghosh had said the party won’t remove him as minister until proven guilty. But as TV screens flashed visuals of cash heaps recovered from Arpita’s residence on Wednesday, Ghosh said the senior leader brought “shame and disgrace to all of us.” He even tweeted that Chatterjee should be expelled from the party; but later deleted that and said it was his personal opinion.
The Trinamool Congress mouthpiece, ‘Jago Bangla’, has stopped naming Partha Chatterjee as a minister or the party’s general secretary. However, his name remained on the print-line as editor.
The probe is being undertaken as per directions of the Calcutta High Court. The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) is looking into the alleged irregularities in recruitment, while the ED is tracking the money trail. The BJP leaders have tweeted pictures of Arpita sitting on dais in some Trinamool event and questioned Mamata Banerjee over it. They have said Ms Banerjee cannot claim to have not known about the corruption.
Banerjee’s carefully crafted image as a simple woman clad only a cotton sari and using rubber slippers, had badly been dented by the recovery of mountain of cash from a minister under her umbrella. Even as the cash recovered from apartments was being broadcast live on television channels, the Chief Minister tried to distance herself from Partha Chatterjee. Banerjee said she does not support any corruption. As Partha Chatterjee was ferried in a wheelchair to hospitals by the Enforcement Directorate (he claims to be sick), he belligerently asked why he should be fired.
Top level TMC sources say that Chatterjee had replaced Suvendu Adhikari who defected to the BJP just before the state Assembly elections last year, as the TMC’s main fund raiser. Chatterjee had always been extremely close to Banerjee who called him “Dada”. Banerjee had become the single point replacement of Adhikari and Mukul Roy when it came to TMC finances. This “role” is the reason Banerjee hadn’t sacked him till now say sources who add that “Didi” doesn’t want his ire to lead him to talk about TMC finances to the agencies.”