Two days after Trinamool Congress leader Partha Chatterjee was arrested for his involvement in an alleged teacher recruitment scam, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee said that she did not support corruption, The Times of India reported.
At an award function in Kolkata on Monday, Banerjee said that if anyone is proven guilty, then he or she must be punished. “The party, too, will take action,” she said. “But, I condemn the malicious campaign against me.”
The chief minister said that the Bharatiya Janata Party was wrong if it thought it could break her party by using central agencies.
Banerjee also denied any links between Chatterjee’s aide Arpita Mukherjee and the Trinamool Congress. “I attend several programmes, if someone gets clicked with me, is it my fault?” she asked. Mukherjee is in the Enforcement Directorate’s custody, and the agency has said that it recovered about Rs 20 crore from her home.
Meanwhile, the Enforcement Directorate’s arrest memo stated that Chatterjee tried calling the chief minister four times on Sunday, but she did not take his call, ANI reported.
While Chatterjee was being taken away from his home by the Enforcement Directorate, he had also told mediapersons that he tried to contact the chief minister, but to no avail.
The case
Chatterjee was the state education minister in 2018 when jobs were allegedly given to candidates in return for money instead of deserving ones who had qualified in the recruitment process.
The Enforcement Directorate inquiry was based on a first information report filed by the Central Bureau of Investigation. On June 15, the Calcutta High Court had asked the investigation agency to look into alleged irregularities in the recruitment of Group C and Group D staff, assistant teachers of Classes 9 to 12, and primary teachers.
After the Enforcement Directorate arrested him on Saturday, Chatterjee was admitted to a hospital in Kolkata. On Monday morning, he was shifted to the All India Institute of Medical Sciences facility in Bhubaneswar after the agency alleged that he was misusing his influence to stay in a hospital.
The director of All India Institute of Medical Sciences in Bhubaneswar said that Chatterjee did not require immediate hospitalisation.
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