Trinamul Youth Congress chief Abhishek Banerjee on Sunday said that the party will not be cowed down by the CBI notice to his wife Rujira who has been asked to join the probe in a coal pilferage case. The Trinamul Congress, in a statement, also denounced the move as a political vendetta and said the people will give the BJP a “befitting reply” in the ensuing Assembly elections.
The notice had asked Rujira to be present at their Harish Mukherjee Road residence to reply to queries related to the case. “If they think they can use these ploys to intimidate us, they are mistaken. We are not the ones who would ever be cowed down,” Abhishek, the nephew of Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee, said in a tweet.
“We have full faith in the law of the land,” he added. At 2 pm today, the CBI has served the letter at their Harish Mukherjee residence. The letter was addressed to Rujira and she was asked to be at home for interrogation by a CBI team led by additional SP, CBI (anti-corruption bureau), Umesh Kumar.
The letter stated: “You are aware with the case below which I am investigating under Chapter XII of the Code of Criminal Procedure 1973.” It asked Rujira to be present at her residence as the CBI investigating team will visit her residence regarding interrogation of the case. Abhishek stated: “At 2 pm today, the CBI served a notice in the name of my wife. We have full faith in the law of the land. However, if they think they can use these ploys to intimidate us, they are mistaken. We are not the ones who would ever be cowed down.”
Trinamul Congress Rajya Sabha MP and national spokesperson Derek O’Brien stated,”it’s so predictable. So desperate. All allies have left them. So the only loyal allies are CBI and the Enforcement Directorate. We will fight it out. We are not scared. We believe people will give a befitting reply during voting.” Another senior party leader said, “They (the BJP) could clearly see now people of Bengal are rejecting them and hence they are trying their.old tricks of coercion.”
TMC spokesperson and MP Sougata Roy alleged the CBI visiting Abhishek’s house was nothing but political vendetta. “The way BJP was targeting Abhishek for the last few days prove that they were up to something,” he said. Mr Banerjee, speaking yesterday at Nagrakata in Cooch Behar had said: “In this election, the BJP is not talking of Saradha, Narada, Rose Valley and other chit fund scams because all the chit fund tainted leaders such as Mukul Roy, Sovan Chatterjee, Suvendu Adhikari are all now in the BJP. In 2016, before the Assembly polls the BJP state party office held a press conference where the then state president Rahul Sinha showed the video footage of Sovan and Suvendu receiving money.
” The BJP said the TMC was trying to politicise the matter. “If someone has committed any wrong, then the law will take its course. Those who are culprits should be punished. No one should try to politicise the matter,” BJP national general secretary Kailash Vijayvargiya said.
Got-up game, says CPM: While addressing a public meeting at Jamalpur in Burdwan (East), the CPI-M state secretary Suryakanta Mishra said: “It’s a got-up game between the BJP and the Trinamul Congress. Mishra, while reacting to the CBI notice, said: “We knew that this was going to happen. As we all know that the CBI had to get stranded on the Kolkata police commissioner issue, this Rujira Banerjee issue too is going to get settled similarly. Its purely a got-up game and we know this.”
He explained: “This Is planted as part of TMC-BJP’s hidden understanding aiming to prevent the Left FrontCongress combine assume power.” He further claimed that the TMC and the BJP have joined hands to prevent the proposed Brigade rally of the LFCongress. He added: “On getting a tip off that we are going to hold the rally, the Prime Minister’s schedule to visit Bengal is prepared purposely so that the spotlight gets shifted from the Brigade ground. This is a trick that we can guess.”