Sabyasachi Dutta was planning to visit Poura Bhavan on Tuesday morning to return the official car assigned to him as chairman of the dissolved civic board. He had shared those plans with The Telegraph Salt Lake on Monday, hours before he was arrested by Bidhannagar Police.
Dutta said he had waited until Monday for an official communication regarding the dissolution of the board. “Have you seen the order? I have not received a copy,” he said.
He added that he had tried to contact the new municipal commissioner, Ravi Agarwal, but without success.
“On the day of the inclement weather, I had gone to Poura Bhavan and held meetings with the joint commissioner and the executive engineer. I was told the commissioner was out on work. I left a message asking him to get in touch when he returned. I wanted to discuss with him how the board would function, but the call never came,” Dutta said.
Unaware then of the arrest that awaited him, Dutta also questioned the unilateral dissolution of the board.
“Two posts in the Corporation are elected. The mayor may have resigned, but the chairman is still very much in office. Even she (Krishna Chakraborty) has clarified that she will continue as a councillor. So 40 of the 41 councillors have not stepped down,” he said. Councillor Manoranjan Ghosh has died.
Dutta drew a parallel with the events of 2019, when he resigned as mayor after joining the BJP.
“The councillors nominated a new mayor (Krishna Chakraborty) after a month,” he said.
He argued that if the board had indeed been dissolved, all councillors should also be required to hand over their ward offices.
Dutta was picked up from his residence in Siddha Galaxy Phase II in Rajarhat by policemen from the Bidhannagar north police station and later arrested at 12.15am on Monday. He was produced before the court on Tuesday and remanded to eight days of police custody. The complaint against Dutta, though made initially in 2018, was filed again the same evening, police sources said.
BJP MLA and minister Sharadwat Mukherjee said he and his party had no hand in the arrest. “He is true to his name, meaning deft in using both hands. He extorted money with both hands,” he said, taunting the arrested former MLA and ex-mayor.