The five officers of the Enforcement Department (ED) left the house of MSME minister Chandranath Sinha in Bolpur after 14 hours of searching and claimed to have seized unaccounted cash worth Rs 41 lakh.
The ED officials raided the house of state MSME minister Chandranath Sinha at 9.15am yesterday in Bolpur in Birbhum district, in connection with the alleged teacher’s recruitment scam.
Education minister Partha Chatterjee has already been arrested and is lodged in jail in this case since long time.
ED sources said that they have found some clues regarding involvement of Chandranath Sinha directly in the teacher’s recruitment scam. Even the central investigating agency has claimed that the MSME minister has failed to give satisfactory reasons of the amount of cash seized and also about his income.
The ED raid in the house of a West Bengal minister, barely a day after the arrest of Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal has created a stir in the state particularly when the model code of conduct of Lok Sabha elections have already been started.
The opposition parties have alleged that the BJP is using the central agencies to demolish their electoral opponents in this Lok Sabha elections.
Chandranath Sinha is in charge of TMC election core committee in Birbhum district. He was very close to former district President Anubrata Mondal, who has been lodged in jail in connection with a cross-border cattle smuggling case.
Though the MSME minister has been so far tight-lipped on this issue of cash recovery from his house, he has already said that he and his family members will cooperate with ED in the investigations in this case.
During the time of search operations in his house, central paramilitary forces have been guarding the house from outside.