CBI has become BJP’s policing agency: Mamata Banerjee

Kolkata: Training guns on the Modi government over the controversy on the removal of Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) director Alok Verma and special director Rakesh Asthana from their posts following their clash, chief minister Mamata Banerjee sarcastically complained that the top investigative agency has now been in the control of the BJP and it has become the BJP’s policing agency.

“CBI has now become so called BBI (BJP Bureau of Investigation) — very unfortunate!”, the chief minister tweeted on Wednesday morning.

Earlier on several occasions, the Trinamul Congress supremo accused of the BJP’s intervention in the CBI and using the top agency in intimidating the Opposition political leaders. But her latest salvo assumes significance in view of the ramifications of Mr Verma’s ouster from the CBI’s top post.

Sources, however, indicated that Mr Asthana’s removal from the CBI has brought a sigh of relief within the ruling political establishment from “harassment” as a momentum in Saradha and Rose Valley chit fund scam cases suddenly became evident ever since he had visited Kolkata few months back and discussed the progress in the investigation.

The state BJP also shot back to the chief minister with its president Dilip Ghosh claiming that had the party used the central agencies then many Trinamul Congress leaders would have been behind bars.

“She is using the police and administration as her party cadres. That is why she also thinks about others doing the same like her,” he alleged.

Taking a dig at Ms Banerjee the Kharagpur MLA said, “Had the BJP used the CBI, Enforcement Directorate and National Investigation Agency as its own, the opposition would not have been outside anywhere. Half of Mamata Banerjee’s partymen and ministers would have been in jail now. The BJP never indulges in such politics.”

According to the law, the CBI director is appointed for a fixed tenure of two years.

Earlier, Congress chief spokesperson Randeep Surjewala wondered if Mr Verma was “sacked” for his keenness to probe the “layers of corruption” in the Rafale scam and sought an answer from Prime Minister Narendra Modi.