Senior Trinamool Congress leader, former Union Minister and MP Sultan Ahmed died on Monday following a severe heart attack leading the Bengal ruling outfit to blame the “Government in the Centre for his untimely death.”
The 64-year-old MP who was also the president of Mohammedan Sporting Club on Monday morning suffered a cardiac arrest, family sources said adding he was immediately rushed to a posh South Kolkata Hospital where he was declared “brought dead.”
The Central Bureau of Investigation probing the Narada pay off rued the death of Ahmed — an important Urdu-speaking face in Mamata Banerjee’s outfit — no less than the Trinamool Congress leadership even as it tended to suffer a setback in the ongoing probe process into the Narada pay off case, sources said adding officials both in Delhi and Kolkata immediately went into a hurdle over how to go about the case after Ahmed’s death.
The deceased MP was a prime accused in the Narada sting case where Ahmed his younger brother Iqbal Ahmed an MlA apart from 10 other senior Trinamool leaders were purportedly seen accepting cash from a journalist posing as a prospective investor in the State.
All leaders quizzed thus far in the case however have ruled out having taking Narada cash in lieu of favour much the way they had rejected having taken it from the sting journalist at all before forensic tests nailed their lies.
Though many Trinamool leaders whose name could have been dragged into the probe tended to heave a sigh of relief with Ahmed’s demise the party promptly got down to cash in on his death blaming the “Centre and its caged parrot CBI” for heaping mental pressure on the former Minister hastening his demise.
Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee said, she had “even heard that a CBI application was sent when his body was being taken. He was too tensed with the Narada case.”
Party all-India general secretary Subrato Bakshi known not to speak out of turn lashed out at the BJP saying “a party running the Central Government is responsible for his death,” reminding how “it takes 40 years to build a political career and just 40 seconds to end it.”
The party in power at the Centre and some media houses had mentally tortured him and maligned him so much for the past 8-10 months that he had felt estranged from his family and social life, Bakshi said adding people would give a befitting reply.
Having been grilled twice by the CBI and the Enforcement Directorate Ahmed was reportedly tensed about not able to furnish the documentary details of his claims that the cash he took from Narada journalist was\ routed to the Md Sporting Club.
He apart from Iqbal Ahmed had repeatedly been summoned by the CBI. The younger Ahmed was currently in hospital with heart ailments that had reportedly intensified after being questioned by the ED and the CBI.
Meanwhile the senior CBI officials went into a huddle over how to deal the case post Ahmed who reportedly had furnished some more names linked with the cash transaction.