I have been implicated by using the BJP...... The BJP has trapped me. Mamata didi and Abhishek Banerjee know everything. I am innocent and will be free on 6th (November).”
These are four different syntax formations made by arrested Bengal Forest (formerly Food) Minister Jyoti Priya Mallick —- in a single go — to the media that seems to have kept the Trinamool Congress on tenterhooks.
With the State BJP and Left leadership immediately demanding interrogation of Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee to “get to the bottom”
of Mallick’s remarks a section of the TMC has lambasted the former Food minister — arrested for his role in multi-crore ration scam — for drawing Banerjee’s role in the matter.
“Every time Mamata Banerjee gets away by sacrificing a scapegoat whenever some of her leaders are arrested … but this time Jyoti Priya Mallick has spilled the beans saying Mamata Banerjee and Abhishek Banerjee know everything and that he is innocent … if it is so then the ED should interrogate the persons whose names he has taken to get to the bottom of the puzzle,” Bengal Opposition Leader Suvendu Adhikari said.
CPI(M) central committee member and former MP Sujan Chakrabarty too demanded Banerjee’s interrogation saying “not a twig moves in Bengal without the Chief Minister’s nod.”
Referring to the arrested minister’s remarks he said: “when a senior politician and minister of Jyoti Priya Mallick’s status makes such statements then it carries implication … if according to him BJP has been used to implicate him then the question who has done so … besides the ED has also to dig out as to what Mamata and Abhishek Banerjee know that the Agencies don’t … so their interrogate is not an option
but imperative … if they are not interrogated then the theory of ‘setting’ between BJP and TMC will be more obvious.”
Pradesh Congress leader Kaustav Bagchi too said that no scam could have taken place without the Chief Minister’s Office not having its knowledge. “Long before the ED took up the case the State police had filed FIR two years ago but they stopped after arresting some pygmies and recovering some trucks of wheat … had the police pursued the case they would definitely have reached the doors of Jyoti Priya Mallick … as Mamata Banerjee is the Police Minister too then she will have to answer as to who stopped the police from pursuing the case,” he said.
According to sources under Mallick the Food Department might have presided over a mighty scam of Rs 28,000 to Rs 35,000 crore.
A senior official in the Department who was transferred from his office said, how “there were 1.66 crore fake ration cards against which wheat food grains were being lifted for 10 years … If a person gets 60 kgs of rice an year and if such rice is sold for Rs 28 to Rs 35 a kg then the scam could well cross Rs 30,000 crore mark.”
The official also alleged that the police had suddenly stopped the case after reporting “unclaimed wheat” when about 175 trucks loaded with bags were intercepted a couple of years ago. Those bags were allegedly being smuggled to Bangladesh.
“Who stopped the investigations then … could it be the same person or persons who were the final or end gainers from this scam,” a senior State BJP leader asked, saying whether Mallick already has revealed everything to the ED or else “why will he be so confident of his release on November 6.”
He also wondered whether the topmost TMC leadership had sacrificed him leading to his anger following which he was willing to turn approver.