Kolkata: Suspended Trinamul Rajya Sabha MP Kunal Ghosh demanded the arrest of chief minister Mamata Banerjee on Wednesday, a day after the CBI registered an FIR against a dozen senior Trinamul Congress leaders in the Narada sting operation.
Mr Ghosh slammed the Trinamul supremo after appearing before the CBI at CGO Complex in Salt Lake in the morning to abide by the condition set by the court during his bail. He alleged, “The chief minister has been trying to influence the probe in one pretext or the other. Earlier, she tried her best so that the case would not go to the CBI by misusing funds from the treasury and gave clean chit to the accused.”
Mr Ghosh added, “Ms Banerjee even described the footage as fake. Later, she claimed that the cash was taken as a contribution. If Ms Banerjee continues to do so, the CBI should arrest her first and take her in the custody for the sake of a free and fair investigation before catching the rest of the accused.” Tearing into the chief minister’s comments about the CBI case, he wondered why the investigation has to be tackled “politically.”
Mr Ghosh added, “When I was arrested and was subjected to harassment, all of them said: law will take its own course. Why cannot it be the same now for others? Why does it have to be fought ‘politically’ now? There is no need to tackle it politically. When the CBI booked them, they may move the court to contest it legally. The CBI should be allowed to probe the case freely.”
The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) will send summons to the 13 accused from next week for questioning. On Tuesday, a meeting was held by some senior officers at the anti corruption branch (ACB) office which is located at Nizam Palace in south Kolkata. According to sources, deputy superintendent of police (ACB) Ranjit Kumar has been entrusted to look after the preparation and sending the summons to the accused that were seen in the sting footage.
Sources indicated that the accused would be asked to appear at the ACB office in the city.
Earlier, superintendent of police (ACB) Nagendra Prasad led the collection of the footage and documents including forensic reports from a PSU bank following the Calcutta high court’s order on March 17. He however has been transferred to Dhanbad recently.
