On the backfoot after the arrest of two Trinamool Congress ministers, two MLAs and numerous leaders for alleged involvement with different scams, West Bengal’s ruling party has decided to highlight the “enormous increase” in the assets of BJP leaders at the central and state levels and demanded that the central agencies probe them as well.
Senior Trinamool leader Shashi Panja said, “If the Enforcement Directorate and the CBI can probe Trinamool Congress leaders, why can’t these agencies probe the enormous increase in the assets of BJP leaders? We are directly taking names and demanding that law enforcement agencies probe the reasons behind the increase in assets of Minister of State of Petroleum and Natural Gas and Labour and Employment in the Modi Ministry Rameshwar Teli, Jyotiraditya Scindia, Jagdambika Pal, Himanta Biswa Sarma, Soumitra Khan and the family of Suvendu Adhikari.”
“The CBI and ED are probing the Trinamool Congress leaders but not the BJP leaders. This is pure vendetta politics. Even the pace of investigations is closely tied to the issue of impending elections. If corruption is to be fought, then agencies should probe every person against whom there are allegations,” she further said.
Another spokesperson Partha Bhowmik said: “Modi said ‘na khaunga, na khane dunga’, but the actual situation is different. What the BJP actually believes is ‘khane dunga, if you are in the BJP.’”
Trinamool Congress spokesperson Kunal Ghosh remarked, “The BJP leaders in West Bengal have amassed abnormal wealth in a short span of time. This is a clear case of corruption and they must be held accountable. We demand that the CBI probe the matter and bring the guilty to book.”
Ghosh also alleged that the BJP leaders have been using their political clout to protect themselves from the law. “The BJP leaders are misusing their power and influence to protect themselves from the law. But they cannot escape for long. The law will eventually catch up with them,” he said.
BJP MP Soumitra Khan, who was named by the Trinamool leaders, responded to the TMC leaders’ comments, saying: “Before joining politics, I was doing my own business. I welcome the Trinamool leaders to sit with me and learn from me how I increased my assets. But I would also like them to furnish documents of their own leaders detailing what their own leaders did due to which their assets increased by leaps and bounds”.
Leader of the Opposition in the Bengal Assembly and the BJP leader Suvendu Adhikari said that it was well-known that his family was a prosperous one for a long time and “each and every paise is accounted for and mentioned in the Income Tax returns of all members of the Adhikari family”.
Regarding the arrest of former Food Minister Jyotipriya Mallick for alleged involvement in a ration card scam, Trinamool Congress spokesperson Partha Bhowmik said that the aim was to weaken the party’s organisation in the North 24-Parganas district which has had five Lok Sabha elections since Mallick controlled the party unit.