In yet another embarrassing situation for the Trinamool Congress which has already seen a number of its ministers and MLAs going to jail on charges of a plethora of scams — related to recruitment, ration distribution, chit fund etc — the Income Tax Department officials on Wednesday conducted marathon raids at the New Alipore residence of Swarup Biswas an influential Trinamool Congress leader and the brother of senior Bengal minister Arup Biswas known for his close proximity to Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee.
Residents of a businessman and a builder connected to Biswas was also raided by the I-T sleuths sources said adding they had landed at Biswas’ homes pursuing the footprints of some suspicious financial transactions. Both Swarup and his wife Juin Biswas a TMC spokesperson and a Kolkata Corporation councilor were quizzed by the I-T officials who recovered a number of documents from their house., sources said.
Incidentally the Enforcement Directorate had last month issued summons to Arup Biswas in connection with a money laundering case worth Rs 1,900 crore.
Earlier the ED had arrested senior Bengal minister Partha Chatterjee for his connection in the school teacher recruitment scam, his Cabinet colleague Jyotipriya Mallick in Rs 10,000 crore ration scam and a number of MLAs and senior officials including a serving vice chancellor of a State-run university shaking the very foundation of the TMC Government and allowing the Opposition parties particularly the BJP to gain a stronger toe-hold in the State politics.
Meanwhile in an unrelated development TMC general secretary Abhishek Banerjee — who on Tuesday earned a much needed reprieve from the Supreme Court against any summons from the ED till July — on Wednesday attacked the BJP for throwing search lights in other persons’
houses and ignoring its own dark underbelly.
Speaking at a rally at Basirhat on the recent Sandeshkhali incidents that have seen the arrest of local party don and Sheikh Shahjahan in alleged cases of land-grab and sexual assaults Banerjee said how the BJP were raising fingers at the TMC men but were not taking action against their own MPs.
They were arresting people like Sheikh Shahjahan because “they want to weaken the TMC’s organisational strength by misleading the people…. But are they sending the central agencies to houses of their own MPs who are involved in sexual assault of wrestlers,” he asked.