After former Bengal minister Partha Chatterjee it is the turn of another ex minister and Trinamool Congress MLA Zakir Hussein.
The Income Tax authorities have recovered Rs 15 crore from the factory and rice mills of Hussein a businessman-cum-TMC MLA from Jangipur in Murshidabad district. Hussein however cried “conspiracy” saying he was being framed and that the cash was kept to pay the wages of agricultural labourers and his factory workers.
The Income Tax Department sources said that of the Rs 15 crore, Rs 9 crore was recovered from his residence alone, while the remaining Rs 6 crore was recovered from a Bidi factory and rice and oil mills owned by Hussain.
Hussein is a two-time Trinamool Congress MLA and a former State minister.
A total of 28 locations were raided on Wednesday and Thursday. The cash was stuffed inside gunny bags, sources said.
Raids were also being conducted at the house, offices and a hotel belonging to Amiruddin Bobby a Kolkata Municipal Corporation councilor. Bobby is a TMC corporator and Mayor-in-Council of KMC. Though I-T sources would not reveal much there were inside reports that raid was being conducted in premises belonging to the TMC councilor for the past more than 50 hours said adding a large number of documents have thus far been recovered.
Already in the line of fire on account of its senior leaders getting implicated in a plethora of scams --- from cow smuggling to recruitment scandal --- that saw some of its ministers and MLAs going to jail, the TMC leaders stuck to their usual defence complaining political witch-hunting by the BJP.
Though the TMC leadership would not react immediately some of their senior leaders said the party was being targeted by the BJP government ahead of the panchayat elections. “Let the law take its own course but one thing is for sure that the TMC is targeted by the BJP knowing full well that they will miserably fail in the rural polls … this is a clear case of political vendetta,” a senior TMC leader said.
Earlier the Enforcement Directorate recovered Rs 51 crore and jewelry and other valuables worth many more crores from the residence of Arpita Mukherjee a close aide of Partha Chatterjee a former Bengal minister and number two in Mamata Banerjee Cabinet.
Even as the news hit national headlines the minister was later arrested. Similarly another senior TMC leader and its national executive member Anubrata Mondal too were arrested by the CBI on charges of cow smuggling. Both are presently in jail.
