West Bengal Industries Minister Partha Chatterjee, arrested in the SSC scam, should be immediately removed from his post and expelled from the Trinamool Congress, the party’s state general secretary Kunal Ghosh demanded on Thursday. Ghosh said a party meeting has been announced in this regard this evening.
According to Enforcement Directorate officials, around Rs 50 crore in cash and gold in kilograms were recovered from the apartment belonging to Chatterjee’s close aide Arpita Mukherjee.
Partha Chatterjee should be immediately removed from all posts in the ministry and party. He should be expelled. If this statement is found to be false, then the party has every right to remove me from all posts. I will continue as a soldier of @AITCofficial (TMC),” Ghosh, also the spokesperson of the party, tweeted.
He also said that he has full faith in the Chief Minister. Mamata Banerjee and TMC national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee.
“He (Parth Chatterjee) is saying why he will quit the ministerial post. Why is he not saying in the public domain that he is innocent and has no relation with Arpita Mukherjee? What is stopping him from doing so? I have full faith in Mamata Banerjee and Abhishek Banerjee and I think they will take an appropriate decision.
The remarks came amid attacks by the opposition BJP and CPI(M) on the TMC for not taking any action against Chatterjee, after a huge amount of cash was recovered from properties linked to him.
However, he deleted the tweet a few hours later saying that the party had raised the issue.
I expressed my opinion in my earlier tweet.
Now the party has raised the issue.
Avishek Banerjee has called a party meeting at TMC Bhawan at 5 pm today. I have been asked to attend that meeting as well.
So that @AITCofficial I have taken up the matter, I am deleting the individual.— Kunal Ghosh (@KunalGhosh Again) 28 July 2022
On Wednesday, Ghosh said he was hopeful that the TMC leadership would heed the public’s perception as the recovery of cash was an “insult” to the party and a “shame for all of us”.
TMC spokesperson Debangshu Bhattacharya, whose song ‘Khela hobe’ hit the headlines for the party’s 2021 election campaign, also demanded the expulsion of Chatterjee.
“As a party worker, I feel we do not deserve this public humiliation because of one person. The leadership should take note of this and expel him from the party.
Responding to the statements, BJP spokesperson Samik Bhattacharya claimed that the TMC was trying to distance itself from Chatterjee. “All these years, he was a powerful minister and a party leader. Now, as he has been arrested, TMC is trying to distance himself from him. TMC is trying to make him a scapegoat. The money trail should be checked,” he said.
The Chief Minister had recently said that if someone is found guilty, she will not spare the person even though she is a minister. Chatterjee holds the portfolios of commerce and industry, parliamentary affairs, information technology and Electronics, and Public Enterprises and Industrial Reconstruction in the State Cabinet.
Trinamool Congress general secretary Chatterjee was arrested on Saturday in the SSC scam. The CBI, as directed by the Calcutta High Court, is probing alleged irregularities in recruitment of Group-C and D employees as well as teachers in government-sponsored and aided schools on the recommendations of the West Bengal School Service Commission (SSC). The ED is tracking the money trail in the scam.
Chatterjee was the education minister when the alleged irregularities took place. His government car was taken back by the state assembly on Tuesday.
TMC mouthpiece “Jago Bangla” (Wake Up, Bengal) has stopped naming him as a minister or general secretary of the party. However, his name remains in the line of printers as its editor.
read all breaking news And today’s fresh news Here