Trinamool Congress’ Saradha woes tended to grow bigger by the day even as party MP and Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s Nandigram spearhead Subhendu Adhikary was on Wednesday grilled by the CBI for more than one-and-a-half hours.
Though Adhikary would not mince words save for the clarification that he had been summoned for recording his statements as a witness, CBI sources said that he had to face some awkward questions which he could not answer satisfactorily.
Soon after his session with the investigating agency at the CGO complex, Adhikary rushed to the Trinamool Congress Bhavan where he reportedly met some top leaders of the party. Some of these leaders were also in the CBI’s glare, sources said.
The Wednesday’s development came within 24 hours of an explosive declaration made by Arvind Singh Chauhan the driver and close associate of Saradha chief Sudipto Sen. Soon after being released from jail on bail Chauhan who drove Sen to various parts of North India — before being arrested along with his boss from Sonmarg in Kashmir — during his flight from Kolkata in April 2013 when his chit fund company bombed told the media that the Saradha chief had met senior leader Mukul Roy and Subhendu Adhikary on April 5 and 7 barely a few days before he fled.
Adhikary was reportedly summoned in connections with the land deals Sen’s company Saradha Realty struck in East Midnapore. He is the third ruling party MP to be questioned by the CBI with the other ones being Kunal Ghosh and Srinjoy Bose. Ghosh was currently in jail custody.
He refused to comment when asked about the contents of the conversation he had with the CBI officers. When asked as to whether he had furnished any documents to the CBI he said he would not share any information with the media. “I will not tell you what I was asked and what I told them or whether or not I gave any documents because answering such questions to the media does not fall within my responsibility.”
The top Trinamool leadership has reportedly directed the leaders not to make any comment on the Saradha probe, insiders said.
Meanwhile, the State committee of the CPI(M) on Wednesday witnessed uproarious scene with many senior leaders demanding the scalp of State secretariat member Rabin Deb for his alleged playing of the role of a mediator in a deal between Sudipto Sen and the owner of a Bengali TV channel which he purportedly bought from him.
“No one will be spared and appropriate actions will be taken against him if he is found involved in any way with the Saradha,” said State CPI(M) secretary Biman Bose.