Awaiting an opportunity to bushwhack the Narendra Modi Government, Mamata Banerjee has lapped up the Punjab National Bank scam to launch fresh offensive in New Delhi. On Sunday she suggested a possible aim-and-effect link between Demonetisation and the country’s biggest bank scandal seeking a “deeper probe” into it.
The Bengal Chief Minister tweeted, the mutli-crore PNB fraud was only the tip of the iceberg as more financial institutions could be involved in the scam that could go beyond the projected Rs 11,500 crore.
Banerjee who had always been critical of the demonetization exercise — allegedly responsible for many Bengal ruling party politicians losing crores — said “this is just tip of the iceberg. This big banking fraud was fuelled at the time of demonetisation. Big money laundering happened during DeMo (demonetisation).”
Wondering whether there was a connection between transfer of top bank officials during demonetisation and the scam Banerjee said, “Key bank officials were changed. Who are these people put inIJ” Claiming that more banks were involved in the scam she said “there are more banks involved” adding “the full truth must come out.”
Banerjee’s statements coincided with demands within the Bengal ruling outfit to take up the issue in a bigger way to avenge the humiliation that they suffered in the wake of some serious invvestigation into the Sharada and Narada scams that saw many TMC leaders going to jail.
“The way these people had been acting (during chit fund scam) seemed that they were gods. But the scam has show that they are also normal human beings and that they are also prone to corruption, rather bigger corruption,” said a former party MP who had currently been brought back to State politics.
Another senior leader Subroto Mukherjee wondered how the Prime Minister’s office would explain its “action or lack of it” after receiving complaints against Nirav Modi last year. “It has become clear that the BJP stands for the interest of the rich people, the richest in the country where they are selling the wealth of the common man to them.”
Elsewhere CPI(M) State secretary Suryakanto Mishra wondered, whether allowing the rich capitalists like Modi to swindle the banks of crores of rupees and the Financial Resolution and Deposit Insurance Bill were mutually complementary.
“Imagine these people are conniving in bank frauds of such huge magnitude allowing the scamsters to flee the country and now bringing a Bill where they will give only Rs 1 lakh to the depositor and allow the rest to be gobbled up,” Mishra said.
Meanwhile the Enforcement Directorate conducted simultaneous raids at five properties — related to the PNB fraud — in the State including at two places at up market Rjarahaat and Salt lake off Kolkata.