: Hours after the CBI arrested West Bengal Transport Minister Madan Mitra on Friday, both the Left and Right targeted Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee. While the BJP and the State unit of Congress demanded her resignation, the CPI (M) demanded that the CBI must interrogate her.
Senior BJP leader Siddhartha Nath Singh said, “It is time for Ms. Banerjee to resign and take moral responsibility.” In a press statement issued during the day, Mr. Singh said that that Mr. Mitra’s arrest has shown that the AITC is “neck deep in the Saradha scam and dots are leading to Mamata’s doorstep.”
Leader of the Opposition in the State Assembly and Polit Bureau member of the CPI (M) Surjya Kanta Mishra said “The CBI should immediately interrogate the Chief Minister.” He demanded that CBI must probe who all were provided compensation by the Justice Shyamal Sen Commission of Inquiry and seize all the documents of the Commission. “The West Bengal Government has involved itself in another scam by not publishing the report of the Justice (Retd) Shyamal Sen Commission,” said Dr. Mishra.
Dr. Mishra demanded that that CBI should step up action against Ponzi scheme companies and ensure that investments of duped depositors were refunded. Referring to senior AITC leader and Panchayat and Rural Development Minister Subrata Mukherjee’s comment that his party may bring a privilege motion against Mr. Mitra’s arrest, Dr. Mishra dubbed it as “laughable.”
State Congress president Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury also demanded Ms. Banerjee’s resignation in the wake of Mr. Mitra’s arrest. “If she has any honesty left, then she should immediately tender her resignation as Chief Minister,” he said. Brushing aside AITC leaderships’ question whether a State Minister could be arrested without the permission of the Assembly speaker, Mr. Chowdhury said that these are all technical matters. “The point is Mr. Mitra has been arrested for his misdeeds,” he added.
Interestingly, it is a known fact in political circles that in 1996 Assembly elections, Mr Mitra was Congress’ key ‘poll-manager’ and worked in close coordination with Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury, the State President of the Congress. A year later Mr Mitra left the Congress to join Mamata Banerjee who eventually broke away the from the Congress to form her own party.
Published - December 13, 2014 10:26 am IST
