The CBI on Monday issued summons to Trinamool second-in-command Mukul Roy in connection with the ongoing Saradha chit fund scam, drawing flak from the Trinamool Congress which accused the Centre of using the agency as a “political tool” to demolish the regional parties. The former Union Railway Minister, who is currently in Delhi, said he was busy with some prior engagements and hence would respond to the summons when he returns to Kolkata after a couple of days, adding that he was in no way connected to any “immoral act.” “I will appear before the CBI and cooperate with them in every way possible. I’m not involved in any immoral act, politically or otherwise,” he said.
Even as BJP observer for Bengal Siddharth Nath Singh said CBI summons to Roy was a big jolt for the Trinamool Congress, Bengal Education Minister Partho Chatterjee shot back insisting “this only shows that the BJP is remote-controlling the CBI or else how could he (Singh) had known beforehand about who was going to be called in 2014, 2015 or 2016!”
However, BJP State chief Rahul Sinha said that the CBI took its time to summon Roy, which is enough proof to depict its independent functioning. “The TMC was sunk neck-deep in the chit fund scam,” he said. Mounting a frontal attack against the Centre, Trinamool Rajya Sabha member Darek O’Brien wondered “whether the CBI is being run by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s office or Amit Shah from the BJP headquarters!”
Calling it a “nasty ploy of using the CBI” to finish off all the regional parties the Trinamool spokesperson said as the BJP could not fight “ us politically in Bengal in lok Sabha elections they were employing dirty tactics months before corporation elections.” The Trinamool would fight them strongly and politically, he maintained.
Curiously, while in the case of Madan Mitra’s summoning, the Chief Minister had literally descended on the streets, she was silent when it came on her party number two. Meanwhile, in a letter routed through the Sessions Court, Kunal Ghosh on Monday requested the CBI to question Roy, Mamata Banerjee and him face-to-face.