KOLKATA: Trinamool Congress national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee em-erged from more than nine hours of questioning by the ED on Wednesday evening and addressed the media, questioning the long-drawn-out probes by ED and the CBI.
“Partha Chatterjee was arrested in July 2022. Has anyone got any justice so far? The central investigating agencies could not even start a trial for the Saradha scam after nine and a half years. No wonder the ED’s conviction rate is less than 0.5%. I had rated their last interrogation at zero. Today’s interrogation is at minus two,” he said.
Banerjee also dared the agency to start arresting all the accused in the Narada sting probe. “Let them arrest everyone irrespective of their political backgrounds, but they should start with (current opposition leader) Suvendu Adhikari. He was not even questioned after he joined BJP,” Banerjee said, alleging the investigation was politically motivated. “They could have asked me to appear a day before or after. But they chose the date on which a meeting of the coordination committee of the INDIA alliance was scheduled. It shows they are simply trying to please their political masters…. I did not want to use this (the INDIA meet) as an excuse to evade the summons.” Banerjee added that it was clear that BJP was unnerved by their defeat in the recent Dhupguri bypolls.
In its charge sheet, ED had earlier claimed Sujay Krishna Bhadra, the now-jailed COO of Leaps & Bounds, was “very close” to Banerjee, and looked after his financial matters. Agency officials claim they had questioned Banerjee on a purported conversation between him and Bhadra. It also corroborated Bhadra‘s claims with Banerjee’s statements. “Let ED prove that even 10 paisa from illegitimate sources entered the accounts of Leaps & Bounds. They had brought the name of the same company in connection with coal and cattle probes,” Banerjee said.
“Partha Chatterjee was arrested in July 2022. Has anyone got any justice so far? The central investigating agencies could not even start a trial for the Saradha scam after nine and a half years. No wonder the ED’s conviction rate is less than 0.5%. I had rated their last interrogation at zero. Today’s interrogation is at minus two,” he said.
Banerjee also dared the agency to start arresting all the accused in the Narada sting probe. “Let them arrest everyone irrespective of their political backgrounds, but they should start with (current opposition leader) Suvendu Adhikari. He was not even questioned after he joined BJP,” Banerjee said, alleging the investigation was politically motivated. “They could have asked me to appear a day before or after. But they chose the date on which a meeting of the coordination committee of the INDIA alliance was scheduled. It shows they are simply trying to please their political masters…. I did not want to use this (the INDIA meet) as an excuse to evade the summons.” Banerjee added that it was clear that BJP was unnerved by their defeat in the recent Dhupguri bypolls.
In its charge sheet, ED had earlier claimed Sujay Krishna Bhadra, the now-jailed COO of Leaps & Bounds, was “very close” to Banerjee, and looked after his financial matters. Agency officials claim they had questioned Banerjee on a purported conversation between him and Bhadra. It also corroborated Bhadra‘s claims with Banerjee’s statements. “Let ED prove that even 10 paisa from illegitimate sources entered the accounts of Leaps & Bounds. They had brought the name of the same company in connection with coal and cattle probes,” Banerjee said.