Kolkata, Oct 14 TMC MP Abhishek Banerjee on Wednesday launched a fresh attack on the BJP by linking the saffron party with Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar and claiming that the CEC is being “protected” by the ruling dispensation to prevent its own top leaders from being exposed.
Emerging from the Shakespeare Sarani police station here, where he was questioned for about five-and-a-half hours in connection with the case of a scuffle during the removal of a billboard from the TMC leader’s Camac Street office, Banerjee took a swipe at the ruling party, claiming that Gyanesh Kumar was the “lifeline of BJP”.
“Gyanesh Kumar is being protected by the BJP which wants to save him at any cost. He is the lifeline of BJP. If Kumar is exposed, not a single BJP leader involved in these irregularities will escape accountability. Everything will come crashing down, and the entire network will be revealed,” Banerjee said.
The TMC leader also questioned what he described as the police’s excessive zeal in suppressing protests against Kumar.
“Their only objective is to shield Gyanesh Kumar, because if he goes down, everyone associated with him will go down as well. Powerful individuals occupying influential positions will face scrutiny,” he claimed.
Banerjee claimed that the Mamata Banerjee faction of the TMC leadership and the opposition INDIA bloc were not merely demanding Kumar’s resignation.
“Kumar will have to go to jail,” he said.
The Kolkata Police had served two notices at the Diamond Harbour MP’s house asking him to appear before its officers for questioning in connection with a complaint lodged by the Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC).
The KMC had alleged that police personnel and civic workers were harassed and assaulted while attempting to remove the TMC’s signage from a building housing a party office on Camac Street in central Kolkata in August.
Questioning the move, Banerjee directly referred to the chief minister and said, “If the Trinamool has no organisational strength, why is Suvendu Adhikari so afraid of it? Even after freezing its accounts, symbol and party name, demolishing party offices, removing billboards and putting its leaders and workers behind bars, why are BJP leaders still unable to sleep peacefully at night?”
Police are following instructions of superiors and this vindictive and revengeful government, he alleged.
“Be it the ED or CBI, I have never fled from interrogation and turned up whenever asked. But what about the person involved in Saradha, Narada scams?” he added, alluding to Adhikari who had been with the TMC until December 2020.
The MP alleged that his party was being singled out and targeted, citing freezing of its accounts and the billboard issue.
“Gyanesh himself will be frozen while trying to freeze the Trinamool’s accounts,” he said.
The INDIA bloc, of which the Mamata-led TMC faction is a part, has been protesting after The Indian Express reported that Election Commissioners Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi objected on record at least 14 times over the past 10 months to decisions and orders mostly related to the SIR process.
Banerjee accused Gyanesh Kumar of effecting changes in Form 6, the application form through which an eligible person seeks inclusion in the electoral roll, and said 4000 EVMs were gutted by a fire in a government building in Kolkata in June.
“My understanding is that the Supreme Court has questioned aspects of the Form 6 modifications and their approval, and I want the EC to explain the legal basis for those changes… The manner in which Form 6 was processed under instructions of Seema Khanna (EC’s IT department DG) did not have the approval of the other two Election Commissioners. If that’s the case, the entire process is illegal,” he said.
Banerjee claimed that he heard Khanna was taken somewhere in Uttarakhand and is being kept hidden.
He added that the growing intervention of the courts and the protests across the country demonstrate that such questions cannot be ignored.
In this context, the MP also took a dig at Chief Secretary Manoj Agarwal and adviser to the chief minister Subrata Gupta. During the latest Assembly elections, Agarwal had served as the state’s Chief Electoral Officer, while Gupta was appointed a special observer by the EC.
“Are there no competent IAS officers in West Bengal? Why should anyone accused of facilitating vote theft be entrusted with important administrative responsibilities?” he asked.
The MP said he will not accept a situation in which PM Narendra Modi and Union Home Minister Amit Shah can be accused of turning India into something resembling Pakistan.
“Why were the CJP members arrested? They did not organise any protest march, deliver any provocative speech, make any objectionable statements, or disturb the peace in the area. Their only fault was that they carried the national flag and demanded the resignation of CEC Gyanesh Kumar. Is demonstrating with the national flag a crime? This used to happen during British rule,” he said.
Claiming that the law and order situation in the state worsened after the BJP came to power in May, he said that an RTI query revealed that major crimes such as 600 rapes, 2,454 murders, 1,44,000 attempts to murder, and 32,000-33,000 grave injury cases were reported in the last four months.
“One brutal rape occurred in RG Kar hospital (during the TMC period), and there were large-scale protests. But after 600 rapes, no protests are allowed, as this government wants to crush dissent. The government is scared as it is illegal,” Banerjee said.
Asked about the charges of assault on KMC officials against him, the opposition party leader said, “Let there be a probe into the allegation. I will go to the high court and the Supreme Court.
(PTI News)
