More cash and gold were recovered on Wednesday evening from one of the properties of Arpita Mukherjee, an aide of arrested West Bengal Industries and Commerce Minister Partha Chatterjee.
The Enforcement Directorate (ED) held raids at several properties of the Minister’s aide and the cash was recovered from one of the apartments of Ms. Mukherjee at Belghoria in northern fringes of the city. ED sources said that the cash recovered may well surpass the amount seized in the earlier raid on July 22. Along with cash, jewelry worth crores have also been seized. Sources said that the value of cash seized has already surpassed Rs 20 crore and the continue may continue well in the night .Several cash counting machines were brought in to estimate the amount of seized cash. . On June 22, cash and jewelry worth Rs 21 crore was recovered from an apartment of Arpita Mukherjee in south Kolkata.
Partha Chatterjee and Arpita Mukherjee were arrested by ED on June 23 after the first raid and recovery of cash. Both the Minister and his associate are under ED custody in connection with the School Service Commission (SSC) recruitment scam where jobs were allegedly given for monetary gains. Mr. Chatterjee was Minister of the Education Department from 2014 to 2021.
Minister sees no reason to resign
In a related development earlier in the day, Mr. Chatterjee who is in the custody of Enforcement Directorate (ED) asked why he should resign. “For what reason (should I resign),” he told journalists who asked him whether he was considering giving up his Ministerial responsibilities. The Minister, who holds charge of three key departments of West Bengal government had this interaction with journalists outside a hospital in Joka in southern parts of the city where he was taken for medical checkup.
Attempts to malign image of Opposition parties
Speaking at an event in Hooghly district West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee said that central agencies are being used to destabilize Opposition ruled states and malign the image of Opposition parties. “There is an attempt to malign the image of other political parties…. They have no work but to upset governments using three to four agencies. The government In Maharashtra has been done away with and now they are eyeing Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand. West Bengal has defeated them so they want to destabilize the government here also,” she said. The Chief Minister also raised questions on the timing of the raids by ED which was the very day after her party’s July 21 Martyrs Day rally. ED had held raids in the city on July 22. Ms. Banerjee reiterated that action will be taken against anyone who has committed a mistake. “ While running a big institution people can make mistakes.... there is also the right to make blunders Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose had said,” she said.
During the day, the Left parties including Communist Party of India (Marxist) hit the streets in protest against the recruitment scam. “She had said that people should vote for her in all the 294 Assembly seats.. Where is her image of honesty now,” CPI(M) State Secretary Mohd Salim said. Mr. Salim said that the Chief Minister has not acted against a single corrupt person.
