BJP demands jail outside Bengal for TMC leaders involved in attack on ED team

Kolkata, Jan 6 (PTI) A day after demanding the President’s rule in West Bengal for the attack on ED officials at Sandeshkhali, the BJP on Saturday said the TMC leaders arrested by central agencies in connection with various scams should be lodged in jails outside the state.

An Enforcement Directorate team was on Friday attacked and its vehicles damaged by a mob during a raid at the residence of a TMC leader in North 24 Parganas district, sparking a political firestorm and a condemnation by Governor CV Ananda Bose who said the state is not a "banana republic".

Alleging that the state administration has completely "failed" in maintaining law and order, BJP state president Sukanta Majumdar said, "There is only one alternative. Central agencies should take all TMC leaders arrested in various scams from the state and lodge them in prisons outside Bengal so that the ruling party cannot conspire to foment mob violence in the name of protest against the investigations into corruption cases." He also asserted that if the "BJP comes to power in Bengal, all those who will foment trouble to derail probes into loot and plunder of public money will be bulldozed".

Majumdar, the Balurghat MP, had written to Union Home Minister Amit Shah, demanding a probe by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) into the attack on ED officers and imposition of President's rule in the state.

Countering the BJP leader, TMC spokesperson Joy Prakash Majumdar said the attack on personnel of the investigating agency cannot be supported, but it should be taken into account that the "ED and other agencies have conducted raids at properties of popular TMC leaders at the behest of the saffron party in the last two years".

The agency also kept the local police and administration in the dark before undertaking such raids, he alleged.

It has been stated by police that they were not informed before the ED raids at Sandeshkhali but the media was intimated by the agency, the TMC leader said, adding that the police could have controlled the situation.

"We had all seen what happened to people’s representatives like Tapas Paul after they were taken outside the state in connection with a probe into Ponzi scams. But charges against them were not proven though they were in jail," he said.

The frequent raids and arrests of popular TMC leaders are "part of the politics of BJP to weaken us before the elections", Joy Prakash Majumdar said.

Congress Bengal unit President Adhir Choudhury said, “The attacks on ED officials and central forces by TMC supporters were unprecedented in the country. It is a blot on the image of West Bengal where even personnel of investigating agencies are targeted and beaten up for probing alleged loot of public money by the ruling party." PTI