Taking a jib at Trinamul Congress chief Mamata Banerjee’s “honesty”, state housing minister Gautam Deb on Saturday alleged that the “party she heads pumping in black money worth `100 crores in the Assembly polls to oust the Left Front from power.” He has also accused Trinamul Congress leader and Central minister Mukul Roy as the “main player of this fishy money game”.
Mr Deb has even demanded Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s intervention in the entire money game that the alliance partner of the Congress-led UPA government has introduced in Bengal politics. Taking strong exception to Mr Deb’s insinuation, Ms Mamata Banerjee challenged the CPI(M)’s “authority to question her honesty”.
Dubbing the Trinamul Congress chief sarcastically as the “hawai chappal-wearing champion of honesty”, Mr Deb asked, “Each but one of the 226 Trinamul candidates have been provided `15 lakhs in cash. From where did they get this massive amount of `33.9 crores?”
Mr Deb, however, did not divulge the name of the person who refused to take the money.
“I will not reveal the name of the person who refused to take the money, but I can give you the phone number of Upen Biswas (Trinamul candidate from Bagda in North 24-Parganas). You can call him and ask for the details,” he said, adding that a conspiracy was being hatched by the Trinamul to defeat Mr Biswas, who is their own candidate.
Subsequently, coupons of `100, `200 and `500 each were issued so as to show that the money was collected from the public.
“In this dubious game, the part of the coupon to be given to the public were initially dumped in sacks and then set on fire to hush it (the entire game) up,” Mr Deb alleged, adding that sacks full of coupons can still be found in the Trinamul office.
“I have got enough evidences ( in pictures) to prove my point,” claimed Mr Deb.
Referring to Trinamul candidate Amit Mitra (contesting from Khardah) depositing a sum of `7 lakhs the very next day after opening his bank account and that Trinamul supremo Mamata Banerjee was behind all this, Mr Deb said: “All this was being done at the behest of Mamata Banerjee and (Union minister of state for shipping and senior Trinamul leader) Mukul Roy. The others (even party heavyweight like Partha Chatterjee, Somen Mitra and Subrata Mukherjee) are not even aware about the entire game.”
The CPI(M) central committee member had even demanded the Prime Minister’s intervention to “unearth the money game” introduced by the alliance partner of the UPA government in Bengal politics.