KOLKATA: TMC leader Partha Chatterjee, who has been arrested by the Enforcement Directorate in connection with the teacher’s recruitment scam following the recovery of huge cash and valuables items worth several crores during raids, had just Rs 6300 cash in hand nearly 10 years back. At a time when the financial probe agency has uncovered cash worth several crores from the residence of one of Partha’s close aides Arpita Mukherjee, it has come to light that the disgraced TMC leader had just Rs 6300 cash with him in 2011.
According to the affidavit filed by him ahead of the West Bengal Assembly election in 2011, Partha Chatterjee claimed that he has only Rs 6300 cash in hand. However, by 2021, assets and cash owned by Partha increased manifolds. It grew by almost 23 times. In the affidavit filed by Partha Chatterjee ahead of the 2021 state assembly election, he claimed that he had Rs 1,48,676 cash in hand.
Ever since his arrest following the ED raids, several shocking disclosures related to Partha’s properties, his relationship with Arpita Mukherjee, other ‘ladies’, his luxurious lifestyle are being made by media houses citing various sources. The veracity of the claims being made about the fallen TMC leader, however, remains to be verified.
He was recently suspended from the party, stripped of all posts and dropped as a minister by West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, who has been facing severe criticism for not reining in her corrupt party leaders and ministers in the wake of the WB SSC scam.
Partha, on his part, has claimed that he “is a victim of conspiracy and is being framed.” The 69-year-old leader, who has been arrested by the Enforcement Directorate, has reportedly told reporters that he has no role in the West Bengal teacher’s recruitment scam and has been framed as part of a conspiracy against him.
Partha said this while he was being taken to ESI hospital at Joka on the southern outskirts of the city for a medical check-up during the day. As he deboarded a vehicle and was approached by reporters, Chatterjee said he was just a “victim of a conspiracy.”
Chatterjee, who was the industries and parliamentary affairs minister, had held the education portfolio when the scam was allegedly pulled off. One of his close aides, Arpita Mukherjee, was also arrested by the ED after crores of rupees in cash were seized from her residences in parts of the city.
On Thursday evening, central agency officials raided a third apartment linked to Mukherjee in the city’s Chinar Park area. As the flat was locked and the keys could not be traced, ED sleuths broke open its entrance door in the presence of central force officers.
Earlier, a raid was carried out in Mukherjee’s Belghoria area flat, where around Rs 28 crore unaccounted cash was apparently found stashed along with large quantities of gold and silver. The central agency had also reportedly seized over Rs 21 crore in cash from another flat belonging to Mukherjee in Tollygunge area.
The value of gold jewellery is still being ascertained, according to ED sources. The CBI, as directed by Calcutta High Court, is probing the alleged irregularities committed in the recruitment of Group-C and -D staff as well as teachers in government-sponsored and -aided schools on the recommendations of the West Bengal School Service Commission.
The ED is looking into the money trail involved in the scam.