Mamata Banerjee knew that IVRCl was a blacklisted company and yet she allowed it to continue with the construction work of Kolkata’s Vivekananda Road Flyover that collapsed on Thursday killing 27 people under it.
The allegation was made by the BJP which claimed that as the Railway Minister in 2011 Banerjee awarded a contract to the IVRCl for constructing a tunnel in Jammu & Kashmir despite knowing that it was a blacklisted company.
“When Banerjee was Railway Minister in 2011 a contract was awarded to a joint venture in which IVRCl was a partner for constructing a tunnel in Jammu & Kashmir” BJP leader Rajnath Singh said.
Incidentally within hours of the bridge came crashing down Banerjee tried to pass the buck saying the original contract was given by the left Front Government in 2009 though it was a blacklisted company.
“Will the Chief Minister answer why as the Railway Minister she gave contract to a blacklisted company in 2011IJ” he asked.
Incidentally the Hyderabad-based company was on the CBI radar and had earlier been blacklisted by the Jharkhand Government also.
Quoting from the relevant documents Singh said that the Railways scrapped the deal with IVRCl some time before the NDA came to power on account of slow progress of work.
The Opposition left was prompt to stage a counterattack saying “if Mamata Banerjee knew that the company was blacklisted why she did not cancel the contract and issue a fresh tender because when we left power barely a couple of piers had been constructed.”
The BJP had been demanding CBI probe into the flyover crash suggesting some kind of quid pro quo between the Trinamool and the company which had sub-contracted certain works to syndicates run by some Trinamool leaders.
Meanwhile, two more bodies were pulled out on Saturday taking the death toll to 27, NDRF sources said adding the trapped truck that was still holding a precariously handing section of the bridge could not be pulled out till Saturday evening.