In what the BJP and other Bengal Opposition parties claimed a de facto vindication of their stance that the much touted Biswa Bangla logo had too many skeletons to hide, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Wednesday told the State Assembly that the logo belonged to her as it was her creation and that she had given it away to the State Government for use until the time it thought to restore the brand to its original owner.

The statement seen as a damage control exercise by the Chief Minister — who broke silence almost three weeks after BJP leader Mukul Roy claimed in a public meeting that the Biswa Bangla brand was the handle of yet another scam — tended to do the opposite triggering an instant Opposition onslaught.

While Roy a former Trinamool Congress’ second in command reserved his comment for Thursday BJP State president Dilip Ghosh said the Chief Minister’s statement only vindicated the former Railway Minister’s stand on the logo controversy.

He had said that both the State Government and the Trinamool Congress were being run like a limited company where the Biswa Bangla logo — used for numerous Government-sponsored programmes including the under-17 FIFA World Cup — was actually a property of Banerjee’s nephew Abhishek Banerjee in commercial sense and otherwise. The logo belonged to Biswa Bangla Marketing Company owned by the junior Banerjee a co-founder of the Trinamool Congress had claimed.

Curiously on the very day when Roy made the statement in the public

rally two senior IAS officers including the State Home Secretary and an Additional Chief Secretary had told the media that the logo belonged to the Government.

After Wednesday’s claim CPI(M) legislature Party leader Sujan Chakrabarty demanded immediate resignation of the two IAS officers who had claimed that the property belonged to the Government. “Now the cat is out of the bag. The Chief Minister should now clear the air by either sacking them or explaining whether what they said was true because now she is telling that the logo belongs to her and not the Government.”

Congress said that “finally regardless of all the denials and desperate attempt to suppress facts the Chief Minister’s statement proves that the property belongs to the Banerjee family and not the Government.”

In a bizarre statement school-boyish exposition the Chief Minister told the Assembly that the Biswa Bangla logo was conceived and created by her and that it represented her dream and “a dream cannot be sold because it is priceless,” so it was “given away to the State Government for use till the time it considers reverting the logo to me.”

The logo was created on September 16 2013 and was registered in March 2014. Curiously though Banerjee said about giving it away to the State Government free of cost she would not say in whose name the logo was registered and whether the rent for its use was being appropriated by any entity legal or natural.

Biswa Bangla is a largely circulated logo exhibited by numerous hoardings and used for multifarious Government programmes involving crores including Industrial meets, sports etc, sources said.