The ED, which was jointly investigating the chit fund scam, on Thursday filed its first chargesheet against the Rose Valley Group implicating six officials including its jailed chairman Gautam Kundu. The 1,133-page document with a summary of 40 pages charges Kundu and his company under Prevention of Money laundering Act (PMlA), officials said.
According to sources, the Rose Valley scam, which was much higher than that of the Saradha scam could amount to about Rs24,000 crores as against anticipated estimate of Rs15,000 crore. Meanwhile, a furious Mamata Banerjee directed her party office-bearers to ask the CBI officials to contact her personally if they had anything to know about the party’s expenses during the last general elections.
Banerjee’s angry instructions to her partymen came when she was informed that a senior CBI official, on Thursday noon, called up the Trinamool Congress headquarters to query about present party all-India general secretary Subroto Bakshi. “If the CBI is so transparent organisation then why they do not ask questions in writing and why they keep calling up the party headquartersIJ” Banerjee who was currently touring North Bengal reportedly to told her confidants.
“The TMC is very transparent about its income and expenditure file and has already filed its returns pertaining to the years 2011-12, 2012-13 and 2013-14, so why they are after us like thisIJ” she asked wondering why the CBI was not checking things from Roy who was the general secretary then.
There have been allegations that Trinamool Congress had used up a huge amount of chit fund money for its last year’s election expenses and was still do so.
“If they want to ask things about the party’s expenses during the general elections then Mukul is the right person as he was in charge then as the party general secretary … then why are they harassing BakshiIJ” Banerjee asked before directing her men “now if they call up again tell them to call me up. I’ll handle the issue as the party president.”
The Chief Minister had appointed Bakshi a lok Sabha MP in place of his predecessor Mukul Roy last month after Banerjee got suspicious of the former Railway Minister waning loyalty amid reports that he had divulged crucial facts about Trinamool Congress’ alleged connections with the Saradha chit fund company.
In Kolkata Education Minister Partho Chatterjee towed an equally combative line saying “whenever there is an election such telephones start ringing up. This is done by the CBI to make our position weaker in the State. But nothing will happen as repeated elections have already proven.”
He also linked the CBI call with Banerjee’s decision to hit the streets against the Centre’s proposed land Bill. The Chief Minister would lead a protest rally on April 8 against the land Bill that the Opposition dismissed as a show of strength ahead of the April 18 and 25 civic elections to 92 boards. “The phone call came within hours of Mamata Banerjee’s decision to lead the protest rally” Chatterjee said.