The Partha Chatterjee Case: Whose Money Is It?
Linus tackles things head-on. He takes sides in his analysis and it fits excellently with our editorial policy. No 'maybe's' and 'allegedly' for him, only things in black and white.
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By Linus Garg
First publised on 2022-08-01 08:18:21
About the Author
Linus tackles things head-on. He takes sides in his analysis and it fits excellently with our editorial policy. No 'maybe's' and 'allegedly' for him, only things in black and white.
View all posts by this Author
Partha
Chatterjee, former West Bengal minister and senior TMC leader, accused in the
SSC recruitment scam in the state, vehemently denied that the cash and gold
recovered from the flats of his close aide Arpita Mukherjee belonged to him. He
said thrice in Bengali "amar noy, amar noy, amar noy" (not mine, not mine, not
mine) immediately raising the question who he was trying to blame. Chatterjee
had earlier also said that he was being implicated in a conspiracy. Political
circles in the state are abuzz with rumours and people are wondering who
Chatterjee is trying to blame.
The events
as they have unfolded show a very interesting chronology. That the Enforcement
Directorate (ED) had raided Arpita Mukherjee's flat and recovered huge cash,
gold and property papers was known to all on the day ED officials chose to
visit Chatterjee's house to question him in a marathon session. As soon as the
cash and other valuables were recovered and seized, TMC spokesmen issued
statements saying the party had nothing to do with the amount seized and Arpita
Mukherjee was not a party member. Later, when Chatterjee was arrested and he allegedly
called Mamata Banerjee past midnight, she did not receive his calls. When more
cash was recovered a couple of days later from another flat, TMC once again
distanced itself from the seizure.
Later when
Chatterjee was removed as minister and suspended from the party, he started
saying that he was being framed as part of a conspiracy. Now, after 7 days, he
has said that the seized money does not belong to him. Arpita, on the other
hand, has said that she did not know what Chatterjee stored in the rooms in her
flat as she was not given the keys to those rooms and not allowed inside. It
was only Chatterjee who used to open those rooms. So if now Chatterjee says
that the money does not belong to him, whose money was he storing in those
rooms and on whose behest was he acting as the keeper of the stash?
The TMC has
rightly questioned his silence in the initial days and his denial now. But it
could be that when Chatterjee was arrested, he had hopes that the party would
bail him out of the tricky situation. When he was removed as minister and
suspended from the party, he knew he was on his own and started making
allegations about the conspiracy and fact that the money did not belong to him.
Whatever the situation, the fact is that the SCC scam did happen and that is
proved by the fact that there are many witnesses who have said they paid money
to get the jobs. ED has also allegedly recovered notes, some of them allegedly on the letterhead of the then education minister, about names of people given jobs and the amount they paid. Money did change hands and the
huge amount recovered till now from the accused shows that it was a massive
scam. Although the TMC can say that Partha Chatterjee was the mastermind, still
he was the education minister then and it is strange that the party did not get
a whiff of what he was up to. For now, the TMC has done damage control by removing
Chatterjee but if more skeletons tumble out then the party will be further embarrassed.
