Partha suspended from Bengal cabinet
The Mamata Banerjee- led Trinamool Congress government in West Bengal on Thursday removed Partha Chatterjee, who has been arrested by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) in connection with the teachers recruitment, from the ministry with immediate effect, an official party order stated.
“Partha Chatterjee, minister in charge, department of industry, commerce and enterprises, department of information technology and electronics, department of parliamentary affairs and department of public enterprises and industrial reconstruction, is hereby relieved of his duties as MIC of the aforesaid department with immediate effect,” an official order said.
Chief minister Banerjee later said at a government event here that she will look after the portfolios held by Chatterjee for the time being.
The decision to sack Chatterjee was taken at a meeting convened hours after TMC state general secretary Kunal Ghosh demanded that the minister, arrested in the SSC scam case, be sacked from the cabinet and expelled from the party after nearly ₹ 50 crore in cash was recovered from properties linked to him.
“Partha Chatterjee should be removed from ministry and all party posts immediately. He should be expelled. If this statement is considered wrong, party has every right to remove me from all posts. I shall continue as a soldier of @AITCofficial (TMC),” Ghosh tweeted at 9.52 am.
ED arrested Chatterjee, who is also the Trinamool Congress secretary-general, on July 23 in connection with its investigation into alleged irregularities in the recruitment drives by the School Service Commission (SSC). The central agency has also arrested Chatterjee’s close associate Arpita Mukherjee and seized crores of rupees from her houses in different parts of the city.
Till Thursday morning, ₹ 27.90 crore in cash, besides a
huge amount of gold jewellery from an apartment linked to Mukherjee was recovered, ED officials said.
The stacks of cash were recovered from the apartment in Belgharia on Wednesday, and after overnight counting, it amounted to ₹ 27.90 crore, they said.
The investigators are still ascertaining the value of the gold jewellery, believed to be in kgs, they added.
The money and gold were found five days after the agency seized more than Rs 21 crore in cash, besides jewellery and foreign exchange from another flat of Mukherjee in south Kolkata’s Tollygunge area, following which she was arrested.
In all, nearly Rs 50 crore in cash has been seized so far, officials said.
ED officials on Wednesday conducted coordinated raids at various properties at Rajdanga in south Kolkata and Belgharia in the northern fringes of the city.
During questioning, Mukherjee informed the ED about those properties, officials said.
Chatterjee, the secretarygeneral of TMC, holds the portfolios of Commerce & Industry, Parliamentary Affairs, Information Technology and Electronics, and Public Enterprises & Industrial Reconstruction in the state cabinet.
The CBI, as directed by the Calcutta High Court, is probing the alleged irregularities in the recruitment of Group-C and D staff as well as teachers in government-sponsored and aided schools on recommendations of the West Bengal School Service Commission (SSC). The ED is tracking the money trail in the scam.
Chatterjee was the education minister when the alleged irregularities took place.
TMC’s mouthpiece “Jago Bangla” has stopped naming him either as a minister or the party’s secretary- general. However, his name remains in the printer’s line as its editor.