Suvendu Adhikari on Friday announced a probe into the expenditure of ₹635 crore on an event management company engaged to organise various editions of the Bengal Global Business Summit (BGBS) and indicated that the government might hand the case over to the Enforcement Directorate (ED).

"During the Bengal Global Business Summit (BGBS), Mamata Banerjee's government spent a total of ₹635 crore on an event management company. This matter will be investigated. Not only will there be an investigation, but we will also move the court," said the chief minister.

"If necessary, we will hand the matter over to agencies investigating money laundering. We will not let this go. The people have not elected us to remain silent. You can already see the condition of 'Pushpa' and others," he added.

Sources suspect government funds may have been siphoned off through the event management company. A source said the current government suspected that large-scale misappropriation of public money had occurred through advertisements and promotional campaigns linked to events such as the BGBS.

The source said industry minister Tapas Roy had already directed officials to prepare a detailed report on the BGBS and its expenditure, indicating the government would scrutinise the outcomes of those high-profile events that involved spending hundreds of crores and examine whether public funds were misused.

Mamata launched the BGBS as a platform to connect with leading industrialists from across the country and the world, inviting them to invest in Bengal. After each summit, her government used to announce investment proposals worth thousands of crores in the state, many of which critics claimed were never implemented on the ground.

The BGBS was launched in 2015, and a total of 12 editions have been held.

"If an investigation is conducted, a massive corruption racket will be exposed. The chief minister has already understood this, and that is why he raised the issue today," said a BJP source.

Since the BJP government came to power, a significant number of industrialists have started meeting Suvendu. A section of industrialists has also called on top BJP leaders, including state president Samik Bhattacharya, with proposals to invest in Bengal.

Suvendu said on Friday that his government had been examining the track records of all such industrialists and the performance of their companies to determine whether they had previously been involved in land-related or banking scams.

"We want to determine whether industrialists are coming merely to meet the chief minister and take photographs after presenting flowers, or whether they genuinely intend to invest and contribute," said the chief minister.

"Our first task is to examine whether those industries have been credible business players in the past, whether they have committed bank fraud, land fraud, or whether any money laundering investigations are pending against them," he added.

Suvendu said the government would also examine whether those who had previously acquired land in Bengal had actually established industrial units or were now trying to protect those land holdings by rebuilding ties with the new government.

The chief minister said that in the budget to be tabled on June 22, people would see several policy initiatives related to industry.

Many observers said that several companies had acquired land from the state government in the name of industrial projects, but the intention was allegedly to misuse the land for other purposes during the Mamata Banerjee regime.

"This will be a masterstroke if the government scrutinises the activities of so-called industrialists. It will, on the one hand, help prevent scams involving government land. On the other hand, if the government reclaims land from such entities and allocates it to genuine investors, it would help the state attract new industries that actually want to do business," said political scientist Biswanath Chakraborty.