In what has sent ripples in the ruling Trinamool Congress, arrested Trinamool Congress leader and former Bengal Minister Partha Chatterjee on Sunday claimed that the money recovered by the Enforcement Directorate from the appartment of his close aide Arpita Mukherjee did not belong to him.
Confronted with questions from reporters at the ESI Hospital at Joka in South Kolkata where he was taken for a mandatory check up he said, "The money is not mine."
When asked to repeat whether he really meant what he said the former number 2 in the Mamata Banerjee Cabinet iterated thrice "the cash is not mine ... It is not mine ... Not mine .... Not mine."
Arpita who is also in ED custody have however told the ED that she is not the owner of the money and that she was not allowed to enter the rooms where the cash was kept. She also said that unknown people often came to her apartment with bags and left them in the rooms.
When asked whether anybody was conspiring against him, he said, "You will get to know when the time comes."
The former minister had told that decisions about him taken by the Chief Minister were correct but hinted that some of his party men were conspiring against him.
He would however not clarify the ownership of the Rs 50 crore recovered from Arpita's two apartments. Gold jewellery worth another Rs 5 crore and deeds of at least 40 properties were also recovered by the ED.
The investigators have also found Rs 8 crore in several bank accounts of the duo. The accounts have been frozen. The ED has also alerted the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to find hawala connections in Bangladesh, sources said.
Meanwhile Brngal Opposition Leader Suvendu Adhikari said that Chatterjee was being made the scapegoat and that "the money belongs to the TMC and Kalighat --- the area where the Chief Minister's residence is situated."