Days after mountains of cash and crores worth gold was recovered from his aide Ankita Mukherjee’s apartments in Kolkata, sacked Bengal minister Partha Chatterjee on Sunday claimed that he had no connection with the money whatsoever. His statements to the media came after he had finally broken his silence after the arrest on Friday when he called himself “a victim of a larger conspiracy.”
After raiding several apartments of Mukherjee, the ED had seized Rs 50 crore in cash from Mukherjee’s apartments at Kolkata’s Tollygunge and Belgharia. Both Chatterjee and Mukherjee were arrested and remanded to ED custody earlier this month in connection with the Bengal teachers’ recruitment scam case that had allegedly taken place when Chatterjee was Bengal’s education minister.
The now-suspended TMC leader was approached by reporters today as he was being taken to the central government-run ESI hospital in Kolkata, he shouted thrice, “It’s (money seized) not mine, it’s not mine, it’s not mine.” He was replying to several journalists asking him, “Whose money was it?”
When further asked if its a conspiracy against him, Chatterjee said that everything will be clear “when the time comes.”
Earlier, Chatterjee was attacked by members from his own party over his stoic silence after his arrest. On Friday, senior TMC leader Partha Ghosh wondered what took Chatterjee so long to break his silence. “If anyone has to say anything, they should say it on the first day. It looks odd if you suddenly speak after keeping quiet for so many days. However, he will get the chance to prove his innocence before the court. But, my belief is if someone is innocent, then they should say the same on the first day itself.”
