Kolkata, Oct 28 Kolkata Police on Wednesday arrested former West Bengal minister Indranil Sen over financial irregularities in holding Durga Puja preview shows and the sale of passes, with Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari claiming his predecessor Mamata Banerjee may have benefitted, and it would be wrong to assume only Sen pocketed the money.
The singer and former tourism and culture minister in the previous TMC government was arrested after hours of grilling by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) and Kolkata Police into the “financial irregularities” committed by MassArt Society, with which Sen and his wife Madhuchhanda were allegedly associated, in managing Durga Puja ‘preview shows’.
Reacting to the development, Adhikari said Sen and Banerjee shared a close association, “singing duets together”.
“It would be a mistake to think that Indranil Sen took the money alone. He must have shared it with Mamata Banerjee. She may also have had a share,” Adhikari alleged, while speaking to reporters at the state secretariat.
“We knew Mamata Banerjee and Indranil Sen were complementary to one another. He used to travel in (Banerjee’s) car and sing together. How many people got the chance to get into her vehicle? They even sang their final song together,” he said.
Adhikari said that “institutional thieves will have to go to jail”.
Further taking a dig at Banerjee and Sen, the CM also sang a line from the song ‘Amar Jawar Samay’, saying, “I have heard their last song… It said, ‘It is time for me to leave; bid me farewell’.”
This song was sung by Banerjee and Sen at a public programme last year. It is a popular Nazrul Sangeet that became a major point of political debate in West Bengal during this year’s assembly elections.
Adhikari said the ED and Kolkata Police had been investigating the allegations against Sen for a considerable period and must have found evidence to initiate legal action.
“The ED and Kolkata Police were investigating the matter. They must have found evidence, and legal action has been taken,” he said.
The chief minister alleged that Sen had earlier been close to the CPI(M) and had also been associated with the Left Front government.
He referred to Sen’s links with the Left during the Singur anti-land acquisition movement, saying he and poet Subodh Sarkar had written songs during that period.
Adhikari also accused Sen of taking money from envelopes meant for artistes and alleged that he had received several lakhs of rupees from the state Information and Cultural Affairs Department through an event management company floated in his wife’s name.
“He used to pull out money from envelopes of artistes. Sen had floated an event management company in the name of his wife and taken several lakhs of money from the I&CA Department, and constructed a farmhouse in Singur,” he said.
The allegations come amid an investigation into alleged financial irregularities linked to Durga Puja preview shows and the sale of privileged-entry passes involving Sen and his associates.
“He used to be the blue-eyed boy of the CPI(M). He was also engaged with an NGO belonging to the daughter of a former CM of West Bengal… Such people are like water and take the shape of the container,” Adhikari said.
The CM also said that after the change of government this May, Sen had begun praising the BJP dispensation, and went on to add that such political shifts would not be encouraged by the saffron party.
“The BJP is different,” he said.
Adhikari said Sen has the option of seeking legal recourse, while referring to the former minister’s challenge before the Supreme Court after the Calcutta High Court rejected his anticipatory bail plea.
Earlier in the day, Sen was questioned for at least four hours by ED sleuths at the central agency’s office at CGO Complex in Salt Lake, after which a Kolkata Police team whisked him away in connection with their probe into the scam. The ED and Kolkata Police were conducting their own probes into the matter.
Several officers from the Kolkata Police’s Detective Department, waiting outside the ED office, took the former minister to Lalbazar, the force’s headquarters.
The case originated from a complaint lodged by one Jaideep Mukherjee at Bowbazar police station in Kolkata. An FIR was registered on the basis of the complaint, following which the ED initiated its own investigation.
Sen, his wife Madhuchhanda and his associates are currently under the agency’s scanner for alleged financial irregularities committed by MassArt Society in managing Durga Puja ‘preview shows’.
The accused allegedly collected large sums of money from the public for passes for ‘privileged puja entry’ through the organisation between 2022 and 2025 by “falsely claiming to be a UNESCO-sponsored entity, and subsequently utilising those funds for personal gains”.
MassArt Society — a company, sources said, was set up soon after Durga Puja received the UNESCO recognition of intangible cultural heritage in 2021 — has Madhuchhanda Sen as its president, Dhrubajyoti Bose as secretary, Sayantan Mitra as vice-President and Ranjan Chatterjee as treasurer, the ED said.
According to preliminary estimates by the ED, the alleged financial irregularities could involve Rs 50-60 crore.
The complainant alleged that an impression was created about direct association with, or approval from, UNESCO, although the organisation had entered into no such commercial agreement.
Sen had earlier approached the Calcutta High Court seeking anticipatory bail, but his plea was rejected. He subsequently challenged the order in the Supreme Court.
(PTI News)
