Friday saw West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s ex-man Mukul Roy — who recently joined the BJP witnessing a “qualitative transformation” in his former boss — dropping one hell of a bombshell implicating top Trinamool leadership in the multi-crore Saradha chit fund scam.
Stopping not just at that he also alleged how some of her relatives benefited from the nepotism cult unleashed by her Government. Appearing in his first public meeting for the BJP Roy dropped a bomb saying how one top Trinamool leader held a number of meetings with now jailed Saradha boss Sudipto Sen.
The former Railway Minister — who finds himself at the receiving end of police actions after joining the BJP — stopped short of naming the Chief Minister directly but iterated, “I was personally present in the meeting with Sudipto Sen at Dello Bungalow (in Kurseong)” adding, “Many other meetings were held with the Sharada chief like the one at the house of painter Suvaprasanna.” Meetings also took place at a Bengali newspaper office, following which the ponzi king pin invested liberally about Rs 840 crore in tourism, media and ambulance services.
Incidentally the Opposition parties had earlier complained about how ambulances were used during the nights to carry hard cash of the chit fund company from Jangal Mahal area to Sen’s office in Kolkata.
Similar allegations had been made by rebel Trinamool MP Kunal Ghosh earlier when he said, “Mamata Banerjee is the biggest beneficiary of the Sharada chit fund scam.”
The Opposition had also kicked off a storm when Banerjee was the Railway Minister and when Sen used his tourism company’s logo alongside that of the Indian Railways’. Her opponents also objected to the way Sen’s company was allowed to benefit from Railway Ministry's “Bharat Teertha Darshan” scheme.
Much to the chagrin of the Bengal ruling outfit Roy complained how the State had been turned into a personal fief of a particular family where even the “FIFA under-17 World Cup was given to be organised by a company named Bishwa Bangla and owned by Abhishek Banerjee (the MP nephew of Mamata Banerjee).”
In a calculated move Banerjee let State administration to react through a Secretary who said though the Bishwa Bangla logo was created by Banerjee herself she had given it to be used by the Government and now the logo was exclusively the State’s property.
Roy also said the junior Banerjee owned a company that ran the Trinamool Congress mouthpiece Jago Bangla though he would not reveal as to what cooked up inside. “Campaign materials, literatures, leaflets, monograms and everything are printed by this company,” he said adding even the common party members of the TMC did not know that. “This is the first installment I have given there are many more files to come in the future,” he said.
Attacking the Banerjee for her regular foreign sojourns he said “the Marxist patriarch Jyoti Basu also had the penchant for his london trips but he kept things within his own family but “here the present Chief Minister takes with her a whole army of officials, politicians and media people.”