After the Enforcement Directorate took significant action in the teacher recruitment scam with state minister Partha Chatterjee’s arrest, there was no statement by the Trinamool Congress for the first two hours.
Party spokesperson Kunal Ghosh issued a statement rejecting any association of the party or the CM Mamata Banerjee-led state government with the developments related to ED action.
Ghosh said, “The onus is on the person or her counsel from whose residence the huge amount of cash has been recovered. The onus is also on those and their counsels whose names are surfacing in the case. Neither Trinamool Congress as a party nor the state government has any connection with the cash recovery by the ED. The party is keeping a close watch on the entire issues on why unnecessarily a campaign is going on involving the party. The party leadership will give the reaction at the right moment.”
The statement indicates that the party is distancing itself from the recent developments regarding the minister, including the recovery of Rs 20 crore and multiple electronic devices from the residence of Chatterjee’s close aide Arpita Mukherjee.
Chatterjee, who was the state’s education minister when the alleged scam took place, was interrogated by the ED overnight in connection with the West Bengal School Service Commission (WBSSC) recruitment scam before his arrest. He is the current Commerce and Industry Minister of West Bengal.
The latest comments indicate a similar outlook to earlier remarks by Ghosh which caused embarrassment for Partha Chatterjee. The TMC spokesperson had earlier said that only Partha Chatterjee and not the current state education minister Bratya Basu was answerable for the WBSSC scam, since the alleged irregularities took place when Chatterjee was in charge of the state education department.
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(With inputs from IANS)
