Face of Nation : Trinamool Congress minister Partha Chatterjee has been summoned by the Central Bureau of Investigation in connection with its probe into the Rs. 10,000 crore Saradha chit fund, sources said.
Mr Chatterjee is likely to visit the CBI’s office in Kolkata after 2 pm, sources said. “Yes, Chatterjee has been called to meet our officers for questioning in connection with our probe into the Saradha scam. We are waiting for him,” a CBI officer said, news agency PTI reported.
The CBI calling the state Education Minister for questioning comes a week after another Trinamool Congress MP, Derek O’Brien, was questioned for three hours at the investigating agency’s Bidhananagar office in Kolkata. The CBI is probing alleged links between the Saradha chit fund scam, which surfaced in 2013, and the funding of the TMC’s newspaper, Jago Bangla.
Mr Chatterjee is the editor of the newspaper, while Mr O’Brien is its publisher. Other TMC leaders who have been summoned by the CBI earlier include Subrata Bakshi and Manik Banerjee, an aide of Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee.
Derek O’Brien, a critic of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, has often claimed that the Saradha chit fund scam was being “politicised” by the BJP-led central government to defame Ms Banerjee. “Corruption will never stick to Didi’s white saree,” he had remarked earlier this year.
Last month, the Enforcement Directorate had summoned six people, including Trinamool Congress lawmaker Satabdi Roy and former member Kunal Ghosh, for questioning in the chit fund scam. Former Kolkata Police Commissioner Rajeev Kumar is also an accused in the case.
