West Bengal: CBI searches residence of BJP MLA in municipality recruitment probe
Times of India | 10 October 2023
KOLKATA: A day after it conducted searches at the residences of Trinamool Congress heavyweights, including minister Firhad Hakim and Kamarhati MLA Madan Mitra, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on Monday morning reached the residence of BJP’s Ranaghat (Uttar Paschim) and district president Parthasarathi Chatterjee in connection with the "illegal recruitments" in the civic bodies across West Bengal.
The agency, for the first time, questioned any BJP leader in the scam.
The central investigating agency also reached eight more locations, including residences of former chairpersons of the Uluberia and Diamond Harbor municipality.
The CBI team knocked on the door of the residence of Chatterjee, former chairperson of the Ranaghat municipality.
Chatterjee was the chairperson of the civic body from 1995 to 2020.
The team went inside while central security forces kept waiting outside.
Chatterjee, who was in Trinamool Congress during his stint at the Ranaghat municipality, was asked to leave the post and he switched sides before the West Bengal legislative polls in 2021.
He won from Ranaghat (Uttar Paschim) with the BJP ticket.
CBI officials questioned Chatterjee for more than seven hours.
Another team of the central investigating agency reached the Ranaghat municipality and locked the main entrance.
They conducted searches there in connection with appointments between 2014 and 2018.
A few candidates, who claimed to have applied for jobs at the Ranaghat municipality, came to meet the CBI officials there.
“Investigators can come and interrogate if they feel. We want the truth to come out. I am not afraid as there is nothing to hide,” Chatterjee said after CBI officials went out.
“The CBI has searched his house and questioned him as he was a chairperson of the municipality. The investigation is completely impartial and if anyone has facilitated illegal appointments, he should be behind the bars. We have not called up anyone at the center to stop the search or show any demonstration in front of his house. Even Mukul Roy was summoned by the central agencies twice when he was in the BJP,” said Sukanta Majumdar, Bengal BJP president.