Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan on Thursday lambasted TMC MP Abhishek Banerjee for targeting central agencies and said that West Bengal was being run by corrupt leaders. The comments came a day after Banerjee was questioned by the ED for nine hours for his alleged involvement in the school jobs scam.
“Abhishek Banerjee is not a judge. Law will take its own course. Why is he sacred? Let law take its course and the guilty will be punished. He should not think that he is a judge or forensic laboratory in-charge. A guilty mind is always suspicious. Besides Narada and Sarada (scams), there is also coal, cow-smuggling, drugs-trafficking and other issues in West Bengal. The state at present is run by corrupt leaders. If heaps of cash are recovered from your houses (former state minister Partha Chatterjee), then agencies will have to do their jobs,” Pradhan said on the sidelines of an event in Kolkata.
After being questioned by ED officials, Banerjee lashed out at the BJP for “using central probe agencies to target the Trinamool Congress”. He also dared the ED to arrest him if it could prove his involvement in the scam. “I was questioned again by ED officials. Today’s interrogation was a ‘minus 2’. Previously, it was zero, and in the coming days, if they call me again, it might go down to a ‘minus 4’. They are merely wasting my time. Those who cannot fight us politically misuse the central agencies to regain their political stature. After losing the Dhupguri Assembly bypoll, if they [BJP] think they can harass me in this way and reclaim the seat, they are daydreaming. People of Bengal will support us more and more,” said the Diamond Harbour MP.
Reacting to Pradhan’s comments, senior TMC leader and minister Shashi Panja said, “Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan has been asking why Abhishek Banerjee is so scared and why is he going to the courts of law and saying that Abhishek Banerjee is very corrupt. Dharmendra Pradhan-ji should not be talking about corruption because Leader of the Opposition Suvendu Adhikari was caught taking cash on camera. He is named in Sarada and Narada cases. Why is Suvendu Adhikari not being called for interrogation by the central agencies? Just because he is in the BJP washing machine?”
“On the other hand, Abhishek Banerjee has faced all the interrogation. These summons are politically instigated and motivated. The basic idea of calling him yesterday to the ED was to prevent his presence in the coordination meeting yesterday of the INDIA alliance,” Panja added.
Meanwhile, Pradhan extended his support to Governor C V Ananda Bose by saying that he had the authority to appoint vice-chancellors to state-run universities. The comments from the Union minister came amid a controversy over the appointment of interim vice-chancellors by Bose, who is chancellor of all state universities.
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Pradhan said the state government should concentrate on its role and ensure that incidents like ragging at Jadavpur University are not repeated. “’In other states, the governor appoints vice-chancellors of state universities. In West Bengal, the governor is well within his rights to appoint V-Cs. Instead of attacking the governor, the state government should concentrate on making campuses safe and ensuring that incidents like the death of a student in Jadavpur University are not repeated,” Pradhan told reporters on the sidelines of the Opposition BJP’s organisational meeting in the city.
Earlier, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee accused Bose of violating norms and threatening to impose an economic blockade on state universities.
State Education Minister Bratya Basu and former vice-chancellors close to the ruling Trinamool Congress also accused Bose of acting unilaterally, bypassing the higher education department to proceed with the appointments. For his part, Bose has sent two confidential letters to Delhi and state secretariat Nabanna, contents of which were not disclosed.
