lending out a shriek apparently indicative of what her Government does to the Opposition in Bengal the Centre has been doing to her own MPs, Mamata Banerjee on Wednesday hit out at the Narendra Modi Government for “victimising our leaders to avenge” the anti-demonetisation movement led by her.
She dared Prime Minister Narendra Modi to “do whatever you want but our movement will not stop.” Her immediate point of reference was CBI notices slapped on TMC MPs Sudip Bandopadhyay and Tapas Paul allegedly “at the behest of the Prime Minister” who was “taking revenge to browbeat the Trinamool Congress.”
In Kolkata her senior leaders said such steps would only “strengthen our resolve against demonetisation.” This was nothing but political revenge. “But this cannot stop the Trinamool Congress. We will stand by our people,” Mamata said.
In Kolkata senior TMC leader and Minister Partho Chatterjee earlier said by pursuing political vendetta “you cannot stop Mamata Banerjee and our party from protesting against demonetisation. You are using CBI and other central agencies to scare us,” adding the Prime Minister was under the impression that his party men were saints and rest were thieves. “But in fact your party is the biggest thief.”
The immediate context of Trinamool’s attack was a third-time notice to TMC parliamentary leader Sudip Bandopadhyay asking him to appear before the CBI officials in Kolkata. The central agency was investigating the Rose Valley chit fund scam involving Rs17,000 crore.
Bandyopadhyay had been asked to appear before the CBI on December 30. “I will go and find out what the allegations are," Bandyopadhyay, said. "It's not good to be constantly called and issued summons.”
The CBI sources said that Bandopadhyay who was issued summons on two previous occasions had not appeared citing the ongoing winter session of parliament. The CBI had also slapped similar notices on party MPs Tapas Paul and Shatabdi Roy.
Reacting sharply to the CBI step Chatterjee said “it is unprecedented that a political party has resorted to hooliganism to terrorise others. We want to see how much space you have in your jails and how many people you can put in them,” Chatterjee said.
Meanwhile in a separate development the Enforcement Directorate and Income Tax department were trying to find out the genuineness of tax deposits (including advance taxes) made in Kolkata Metropolitan Corporation after the declaration of demonetisation.
According to sources the financial investigating agencies were trying to look into such transactions worth about Rs105 crore which was allegedly done to convert black money into white.
“About Rs105 crore or even more seem to have been converted by paying of taxes. Things are being looked into as to who paid the taxes and their bank account details etc” officials said adding it would also be ascertained as to whether the KMC was within its rights to order realisation of tax in illegal tenders violating a Central directive against it.