Armed with the Supreme Court order that has extended the time of filing FIR in the Narada video tape case to a month the CBI seems to be zeroing in also on some persons who were not shown in the sting tapes but whose names appeared several times during discussions between the sting journalist and the politicians who took cash from him.
After studying the unedited versions of the tapes the investigators were “trying to understand the role of some more Trinamool Congress MPs” including one “who is also a Banerjee” and close to Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, the agency sources said. The investigators have come across the name of a person called Karan Sharma who is known for his proximity to this Trinamool MP from South 24 Parganas.
He is found assuring the journalist of “all help so that you can meet ‘him’.” He is also heard telling the journalists that he had come “to the right person” and “all your work will be done but it will take some time.” He also talks about the “commission” for arranging the meeting with this MP who is the de facto number two of the Trinamool Congress.
The CBI sleuths are also focusing on conversations between a powerful Minister and an MlA. During this conversation they raise the name of this MP but says “he is currently not accepting cash.”
Sources said the officials have sent a compliance report to the CBI headquarters in Delhi. In this compliance report they have mentioned three “major issues” that include TMC MP KD Singh’s close chemistry with two very senior Trinamool MlAs and the reason behind his funding the Narada expose.
Apart from the Narada bribery case the investigators are also relying on the unedited part of the tapes where the leaders are heard talking about awarding contracts of various government projects to the prospective investors in lieu of cash.
The Narada sting case had hit the national headlines in March 2016 when it was shown that a number of TMC Ministers including Subroto Mukherjee, Firhad Hakim, Sovan Chatterjee, Subhendu Adhikary, and MPs like Sultan Ahmed Kakoli Ghosh Dastidar, Saugato Roy, Aparupa Poddar, Prasun Banerjee were accepting cash from a journalist who posed as a prospective investor in the State.
Interestingly the case tends to have helped the CBI in the investigation of Sharada and Rose Valley cases as the unedited conversations in the video tapes throw light on chit fund cases also sources said adding the CBI top brass have already handed the relevant part of the conversations to the investigators probing the chit fund cases.
On when the CBI would lodge FIR in Narada case the insiders said it could be well before the one month time stipulated by the SC. They are only “waiting for clearance from Delhi,” officials said.