In his first public appearance since the humiliating defeat of the CPI-M in Assembly polls last year, senior party leader and former Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee on Tuesday said the Trinamool Congress has no moral right to speak against black money when its MPs were arrested in Rose Valley Chit fund scam.
Bhattacharjee alleged that the Mamata Banerjee government was full of "anti-social elements" and the entire Trinamool Congress was "corrupt".
"The Mamata Banerjee government is full of anti-social elements and one of them was arrested today," he said referring to the arrest of Trinamool Congress leader Sudip Bandopadhyay by CBI in the Rose Valley ponzi scam case.
"From top to bottom, the entire party is corrupt. This government does not have the moral right to speak against black money. Instead of searching elsewhere, they should search their own houses for black money," Bhattacharjee said.
He was speaking on the occasion of 50 years of CPI-M's mouthpiece 'Ganashakti'.
CPI-M state secretary Surjyakanta Mishra asked the CBI to arrest the "big fishes" allegedly involved in the scam.
"We all know that Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee was present in the meeting with Rose Valley chairman Gautam Kundu in Delo bungalow in Kalimpong. There is no need to raise a hue and cry over the arrest of two MPs. The CBI needs to arrest the big fishes instead of arresting the small fries," Mishra said.
He also dared Banerjee to arrest CPI-M leaders who she named earlier in the day claiming to be involved in the Rose Valley scam if she found concrete evidence against them.
"She has named a few of our leaders today. However, there was no need to take names as none of our leaders are involved in the scam and they are not in the list of probables who are likely to be questioned," he said.
The CPI-M's Kolkata District Committee has organised a rally on Wednesday to demand the arrest of "big fishes" in the Rose Valley scam.