Kolkata: Union Minister Dharmendra Pradhan Wednesday said that posters put up in the city claiming that a 'new and reformed' TMC will come into being in six months are a "desperate attempt" by Bengal's ruling party to divert attention from the graft charges facing it after the arrest of some of its top leaders.
The union education minister, who was speaking to reporters on the sidelines of a BJP programme here, said the posters are attempts to divert the attention of the people from corruption charges. He also dubbed as "baseless" TMC's allegations that the central investigating agencies are being used by BJP to serve political purposes.
"If someone has committed any crime then the law will take its own course. The allegations of political influence are baseless," he said.
Posters claiming that a "new and reformed TMC" will come into being in six months were seen in the city. They carried photographs of party general secretary Abhishek Banerjee but not of West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and were put up mostly in south Kolkata's Hazra and Kalighat areas near the TMC supremo's Bhabanipur residence.
"As for the last few days the TV footages of bundles of currency notes being recovered (by ED) and other corruption charges have been seen everywhere. Some people might find this truth quite hard to digest. So the posters are attempts to divert the attention of the masses from the corruption charges," Pradhan said. CBI had arrested the influential TMC Birbhum district president Anubrata Mondal last week from his residence in Bolpur for allegedly not cooperating in its probe into the cattle smuggling scam.
Partha Chatterjee, former TMC minister who is now suspended by the party, was arrested on July 23 by the Enforcement Directorate in connection with the school recruitment scam. His aide Arpita Mukherjee from whose flats about Rs 50 crore in cash besides quantities of gold and silver were seized, was also arrested. The incident had rocked the state.
BJP national vice president Dilip Ghosh claimed that the TMC posters are a fallout of an inner-party struggle in the party. "When the entire party suffers from moral deformities such as corruption and nepotism, how will it be reformed? These posters reflect an inner party struggle which is now in the open," he said. TMC state secretary Kunal Ghosh, who is considered close to Abhishek Banerjee, had on Tuesday sought to justify the posters by saying that there is nothing wrong with them.
"Time and again Abhishek Banerjee had said we need to learn and improve ourselves. We need to fulfill the aspirations of the masses. So maybe some over enthusiastic party workers put up the posters with his quotes which were made in the past," he said. (PTI)
