No Opposition leader is off limits, Suvendu Adhikari’s police showed on Tuesday.
Personnel who would click their heels and raise their arms in salute till a few days ago swarmed Mamata Banerjee’s 30B, Harish Chatterjee Street address for what they called a “search operation”.
Mamata was in Delhi.
Many Trinamool leaders protested the police action. But that did not deter the state CID (criminal investigation department) from entering the premises, which serves as Mamata’s residence as well as the Trinamool Congress’s central office.
The CID officers spent a considerable time at the gate, being requested by partymen holding fort to do their job in the presence of Mamata or Abhishek Banerjee.
But they would have none of it. They went in.
They stayed inside for less than an hour and emerged with a “nil” seizure list.
The CID did not just knock at Mamata’s door on Tuesday afternoon. They were also at Abhishek’s Camac Street office. The role of the party’s No. II is being probed in connection with an alleged signature fraud.
Abhishek skipped the third CID summons on Tuesday.
The CID is investigating allegations that the signatures of several Trinamool MLAs were forged on a party resolution nominating Ballygunge MLA Sobhandeb Chattopadhyay as the state’s leader of the Opposition.
Expelled Trinamool MLA Ritabrata Banerjee, now the leader of the rebel group, had filed a complaint at Hare Street police station alleging the forgery of signatures, following which an FIR was drawn up. The CID then took over the investigation.
Over the past few days, CID teams have visited several Trinamool MLAs to verify their signatures against those on the document under scrutiny.
Ritabrata and fellow MLA Sandipan Saha were expelled from the party for reporting the alleged forgery.
Ritabrata and fellow MLA Sandipan Saha are now part of a group that has pledged to “help” the Suvendu Adhikari government “usher in development” in Bengal. They have collated the support of 58 of the party’s 80 MLAs and staked a claim to be formally declared the main Opposition party in the Bengal Assembly. The plea has been accepted by Speaker Rathindra Bose, a decision that has been challenged by Mamata and Sobhandeb in the high court.
Senior Trinamool leaders who continue to support Mamata rushed to Kalighat and alleged that the CID search was a ploy to malign the former chief minister, who is “nowhere attached to the alleged handwriting forgery” now being probed by the agency.
On Tuesday, former Trinamool Rajya Sabha member Subhasish Chakraborty was the first to dissuade the CID from entering the premises. “Our leader Mamata Banerjee is on a scheduled Delhi visit. It is known to all. She has nothing to do with this case. Then why do you need to search her house?” Chakraborty said.
The officers replied that the meeting whose resolution had allegedly forged signatures of party MLAs was held at this address, and they were “bound to” bring this address within their investigation.
Chakraborty protested, saying Abhishek had been named in this particular case and his absence should be a reason why the CID should not enter the house.
Nothing could stop the CID — once accused of being slow, but not anymore.
Trinamool MLAs Kunal Ghosh and Madan Mitra plonked themselves on chairs outside 30B. MP Kalyan Banerjee was allowed inside for around 20 minutes.
Ghosh, among the first senior leaders to reach Mamata’s residence, condemned the search. “This is the house of the former chief minister, who is also a national leader. She is in Delhi for the meeting of the INDIA bloc, and in such circumstances and in her absence, to enter her house in this manner is unfortunate. They (the CID) have the right to investigate. Whenever they have asked, we have fully cooperated.... But the way the CID so impatiently entered her house is condemnable and unfortunate,” he said.
Kalyan said the chief minister had sent the police. “Suvendu Adhikari sent the police to the former chief minister’s house because she was not there. Bengal has no democracy. Democracy is finished in Bengal.”
