Rose Valley scam: TMC violence spreads after Sudip’s arrest

Kolkata/New Delhi: A day after the arrest of their senior leader Sudip Bandopadhyay in the Rose Valley chit fund scam, Trinamul Congress workers on Wednesday hit the streets in protest in Kolkata and Delhi, resulting in violent clashes with BJP workers and police.

Several incidents of vandalism and an alleged bomb attack were reported from Kolkata. The BJP office in Hooghly, 60 km from Calcutta, was set on fire Wednesday evening.

Two senior MPs of Mamata Banerjee’s party — Tapas Paul and Mr Bandyopadhyay — have been accused by the CBI of involvement in a ponzi scheme of `15,000 crore that duped small investors in Bengal.

The arrests, Ms Banerjee has charged, are provoked by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, whom she has accused of practicing “the politics of revenge”. She says the CBI was ordered by Mr Modi’s office to arrest her leaders because she has taken him head-on over his decision to ban high-denomination notes. The TMC denies that its leaders played any role in the scam.

In West Bengal, TMC workers blocked roads and stopped trains to decry what they claimed was Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s vendeta politics. They allegedly also attacked a number of BJP offices in districts and residences of some BJP leaders in Kolkata.

In Delhi, more than 30 TMC MPs were arrested and taken to the Tughlaq Road station for protesting outside the Prime Minister’s residence. And West Bengal finance minister Amit Mitra boycotted pre-Budget consultations citing “financial emergency” and a “political environment of fear” in the country.

Mr Mitra, who attended the two-day meeting of the GST council chaired by Arun Jaitley that ended on Wednesday, said the Union Budget had become a “meaningless” exercise after the Prime Minister in his address to the nation on New Year’s eve made announcements similar to a Budget presentation.

He, however, said that he had shared with the Union finance minister the expectations of the states from his Budget and also make him aware of the “financial emergency” imposed by demonetisation and the job losses it has led to.

In Kolkata, a large group of TMC supporters tried to storm into Union minister of state Babul Surpriyo’s residence, demanding his arrest for his alleged role in Rose Valley scam. The police had a tough time in dispersing the unruly mob which was bent on “breaking into” Mr Supriyo’s house where his parents live.

A TMC legislative delegation also met governor Keshrinath Tripathi to inform him that the state government would not tolerate if central forces were sent to the state without its permission/information. They shouted “Modi hatao, desh bachao!” slogans.

“We informed the governor that if central forces are brought to our state without informing the Mamata Banerjee government, then its consequences will be grave... We voiced our apprehension that a conspiracy to disturb the constitutional and federal structure is going on,” state education minister Partha Chatterjee, who led the delegation to Raj Bhavan, said. He was referring to the deployment of CRPF personnel at the BJP office in Kolkata on Tuesday night, after TMC supporters had laid a siege outside.

TMC supporters also targeted BJP leaders and party offices. The BJP’s Hooghly district president Krishna Bhattacharya was brutally assaulted when some people attacked her house on Tuesday night. In the same district, a BJP office in Chinsurah was set on fire.

A large group of TMC workers also marched to the CGO Complex in Delhi which houses the CBI office. They threatened of indefinite siege if the CBI continued to selectively target TMC leaders.

The BJP hit out at the Trinamool Congress and accused West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee of “betraying” the mandate given to her by “protecting” the corrupt.

“The TMC government has turned out to be a mirror image of the earlier Left government. The biggest disappointment is that it allows corruption, and when probe agencies take legal action it resorts to violence and shameless politics of lies and baseless allegations. Instead of condemning the Central government, Mamata Banerjee should have taken action against her party leaders. But she will not do it as her entire government is standing on foundation of corruption and scam,” BJP national secretary Shrikant Sharma said in a statement.

Tuesday’s attack on the BJP office left 12 people seriously injured, BJP’s Siddharth Nath Singh said.