Calcutta: Mayor Sovan Chatterjee's father-in-law Dulal Das and wife Ratna on Wednesday sought an inquiry into his source of income after he accused his estranged spouse of being in the habit of "splurging".
"If the mayor's allegation (about Ratna) are true, then I want to ask from where did he get the money that my daughter used to splurge? I seek a proper probe into his source of income," Das, who is the chairman of Maheshtala Municipality, said in an interview to ABP Ananda .
Ratna, in a separate interview to the television channel, asked the same question as her father. "I pay more income tax than Sovan babu. And if his allegations are correct, let him come out with his source of income. Where did he get so much money to give me for my unlimited spending?"
Sovan's lawyer had mentioned Ratna's alleged spending habit during a divorce hearing peppered with allegations about the Trinamul leader's relationship with Baisakhi Banerjee, the teacher-in-charge of a city college.
Baisakhi, who is married, described her relationship with Sovan as that of a "family friend". Ratna contested it. "I have never known her as our family friend. I am in touch with all his (Sovan's) friends who have been with him for the last 22 years. If she is a true friend, why didn't she persuade Sovan babu to withdraw the divorce case against me?" she said.
Responding to a question from the channel about Baisakhi, Sovan said: "She is my friend and has been by my side during my bad days.... If she can extend so much help, I too can go to any extent for her."
The mayor, who is also a minister in the Mamata Banerjee government, is already facing a probe by the Enforcement Directorate and the CBI into allegations of money laundering after the Narada sting. Ratna's financial assets are being probed, too.
The focus of the probe is whether Sovan accepted wads of cash, as the Narada tapes purportedly show, and the path the money took after it allegedly found its way into one of his bank accounts in 2011.
Sovan has maintained that he did not accept money from anyone and that all his financial transactions were handled by Ratna. "I never managed my bank accounts. Those were always looked after by Ratna. Even she has acknowledged it. I never went through the pages of my bank passbooks," he said on Wednesday.
The Enforcement Directorate questioned Ratna on six occasions in 2017. She had written to the department last September, saying that she couldn't come for interrogation because she was in London for treatment of multiple ailments.
Sovan filed for divorce in November, after Ratna returned from the UK. The estranged couple have since launched a fusillade of allegations against each other.
"Why should my track record be questionable? I was not shown taking money during the Narada sting. I have a proper income tax file," Ratna said.
She said her husband had repeatedly asked her not to return to Calcutta when she was in London. "He told me that the moment I land in Calcutta, I would be arrested. But I argued with him that I had done nothing wrong and that I am not a smuggler.... I insisted on returning and facing the ED."
