By PTI
KOLKATA: The Trinamool Congress on Wednesday alleged that while filing nomination for the recently held assembly election, BJP vice-president and West Bengal MLA Mukul Roy suppressed in the affidavit that he was an accused in the Narada sting tape case.
Another BJP MLA Suvendu Adhikari mentioned the Narada case in his affidavit, but he did not specify the sections under which it was filed, TMC spokesperson Kunal Ghosh claimed.
While two TMC senior ministers and an MLA, besides a former party leader, were arrested by the CBI in the Narada sting tape case on Monday, Roy and Adhikari were not, though they too were accused in the case.
The CBI also filed the chargesheet against the four in a special court on May 17.
The TMC has claimed that the BJP is behind the episode.
“It is necessary for a candidate to mention cases against him or her in the affidavit. Mukul Roy has suppressed the Narada case completely in his affidavit,” Ghosh said.
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The TMC spokesperson wondered whether Roy had got the BJP’s assurance beforehand that he would not be touched in the Narada case.
“In sharp contrast, our three arrested candidates – Subrata Mukherjee, Firhad Hakim and Madan Mitra – had referred to the Narada case in their affidavits,” he said.
Ghosh said that the party will soon decide what steps would be taken on Roy’s “suppression of information in the affidavit”, but the BJP leader should resign from the assembly on moral grounds.
Roy was not available for comments.
The BJP-led government at the Centre has failed to control the COVID-19 pandemic and is now trying to divert peoples attention by “unnecessarily” arresting the leaders when coronavirus cases are surging, the TMC spokesperson claimed.
Ghosh said that the TMC will not comment on the ongoing hearing at the Calcutta High Court on the Narada case and it has full faith in the judiciary.
State BJP spokesman Shamik Bhattacharya said that the CBI was doing its job in the Narada sting tape case and the saffron party was unfairly being dragged into the issue.
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The sting operation was conducted by journalist Mathew Samuel of Narada News, a web portal, in 2014 wherein some people resembling TMC ministers, MPs and MLAs were seen receiving money from representatives of a fictitious company in lieu of favours.
At that time, the four arrested politicians were ministers in the Mamata Banerjee government.
The sting operation was made public ahead of the 2016 assembly elections in West Bengal.
The Calcutta High Court had ordered a CBI probe into the sting operation in March 2017.
