As Partha Chatterjee and his close aide, Arpita Mukherjee, both tainted in the multi-crore West Bengal School Service Commission (WBSSC) scam, were brought by the (ED) officials on Friday to the ESI Hospital here for routine medical checkup, their reactions were noteworthy. While Chatterjee spoke of ‘conspiracy’, Mukherjee appeared devastated.

Of the two, Arpita Mukherjee was the first one to be brought to the hospital. She burst into tears as the ED vehicle carrying her reached the hospital premises. She even refused to come out of the vehicle and the female staff of Enforcement Directorate (ED) and the accompanying central armed forces had to virtually drag her out and take her to the hospital building. A visibly devastated Arpita Mukherjee did not utter a single word to the waiting mediapersons.

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Soon after she was taken inside the building, another vehicle of ED carrying Partha Chatterjee reached the hospital premises. But unlike Mukherjee, he did not resort to any emotional scene and while going into the hospital building on a wheelchair pushed by the ED staff, he just gave a one-liner to the media — “I am a victim of conspiracy”.

However, that one-liner was enough to provoke sharp reactions from the political circles.

Ridiculing Chatterjee’s one-liner, state Trinamool Congress general secretary and party spokesman, Kunal Ghosh said that in such cases the natural reaction would have been — “I am innocent”.

“However, if Partha Chatterjee really thinks that he is a victim of conspiracy, he should prove that in the court,” Ghosh said.

BJP’s national vice president and the party MP, Dilip Ghosh said that it was strange that one of the key accused in the entire WBSSC conspiracy was crying and claiming that he was a victim of conspiracy. “As of Arpita Mukherjee all I can say is that if she is really repentant, then she should clearly reveal to ED and CBI whatever she knows about this scam,” Ghosh said.

Sujan Chakraborty, CPI-M’s central committee member and the former leader of the Left legislative parties in the West Bengal Assembly, said the actual conspiracy was against the thousands of eligible candidates who were deprived to accommodate ineligible ones against the financial consideration.

Veteran Congress MP and the state party president, Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury said that Partha Chatterjee’s conspiracy theory is an indirect admission that he is not alone in this entire scam. “This is just the trailer and the movie is yet to start,” he said.