Mamata Banerjee’s nephew and national general secretary of Trinamool Congress continues to face trouble in the ongoing recruitment scam case in West Bengal. Today he appeared before the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) at its Kolkata office this morning, where he had been called as part of the agency’s probe into the school jobs scam.
He travelled to the agency’s offices at Nizam Palace, where there was a lot of security in place, at 10:58 in the morning, and went to the personnel tasked with investigating the scandal.
#WATCH | TMC National General Secretary and MP Abhishek Banerjee arrives at the CBI office in Kolkata, in the Kuntal Ghosh letter case. pic.twitter.com/R9snJ8Upun
— ANI (@ANI) May 20, 2023
Sujay Krishna Bhadra’s residence was raided earlier in the day by the Enforcement Directorate as part of its investigation into the school employment scam. He is considered to be close to TMC’s top brass. The raid was conducted at the Behala house of ‘Kalighat er Kaku’s’ (Kalighat’s uncle) as he is popularly known.
He had testified before the CBI on March 15 regarding his alleged participation in wrongful appointments made in several state-run and state-aided institutions in the state.
The Enforcement Directorate is investigating the money trail connected to the anomalies in the recruitment at schools while the CBI is looking into the criminal component of the fraud.
The MP from Diamond Harbour who was campaigning in the western city of Bankura, hurried back to Kolkata on Friday night to respond to the central investigating agency’s summons.
A letter sent by a deputy superintendent of the CBI to Abhishek Banerjee’s Harish Mukherjee Road address on Friday directed the latter to appear before him on Saturday, at 11 am.
Later on Friday, the TMC leader dared the central agency to arrest him if it had any evidence of corruption or wrongdoing against him in a speech he made from atop his vehicle. Abhishek Banerjee remarked, “I dare the CBI to arrest me if they have any proof of corruption against me,” during a gathering in Bankura.
On Thursday, the Calcutta High Court rejected his plea seeking the recall of a prior judgement of the court authorising the CBI and ED to interrogate him about the teacher recruitment fraud.
His name appeared in a complaint put out by Kuntal Ghosh, one of the scam’s accused. The authorities, according to the latter, put pressure on him to implicate Abhishek Banerjee in the school fraud case.
On Friday, his efforts to have a division bench and then the chief justice of the Calcutta High Court hear his revision case were unsuccessful. The case may now be heard by a High Court vacation bench, which will convene on Monday.
Notably, he was previously summoned by the CBI on April 17, however, the member of parliament pointed out that the High Court’s order was nullified by the Supreme Court and accused the BJP of ‘harassing’ him through central agencies. He is currently on his ‘Jono Sanjog Yatra’ since April 25 and said that the march will resume on May 22 from his current location in Bankura.
As for my #JonoSanjogYatra, it will resume again on 22nd May'23 from the same location in Bankura where I stop today.
— Abhishek Banerjee (@abhishekaitc) May 19, 2023
Unfazed by these events, I shall strive to serve the people of West Bengal with even greater dedication, zeal and commitment. Bring it on 💪🏼
Additionally, he protested in a letter to the CBI on Saturday that he had not been given enough time to abandon the state-wide public outreach programme he was carrying out in rural West Bengal.
Sources within the organisation revealed that he was questioned by a four-person CBI team starting at 11.30 am. The whole session was videotaped, and the leader’s answers were recorded and countersigned.
The probing team comprised Wasim Akram, the CBI’s investigating official along with three of the special investigation team’s seven members, who were officers of the levels of Superintendent of Police (SP), Deputy superintendent of Police (DSP) and Inspector of Police.
Three TMC leaders, MLA from Nadia district, Manik Bhattacharya, MLA from Burdwan constituency, Jiban Krishna Saha and former education minister, Partha Chatterjee have already been arrested in the case so far.
