TMC leaders jailed as HC denies bail in Narada case
West Bengal ministers Firhad Hakim and Subrata Mukherjee spent the night in Kolkata’s Presidency Correctional Home while legislator Madan Mitra and former mayor Sovan Chatterjee were hospitalised as they complained of illness after the Calcutta high court stayed the bail of the four late on Monday.
The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on Monday arrested the four under Section 120b (criminal conspiracy) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and the relevant sections of the Prevention of Corruption Act in connection with the 2016 Narada sting operation before a special court granted them bail. The case pertains to online news portal Narada News’s two-year-long sting operation. The videos of the operation were uploaded months ahead of the 2016 assembly elections and purportedly showed TMC leaders accepting money in exchange for alleged favours to a fictitious company.
Mitra and Chatterjee were hospitalised around 4 am on Tuesday. Chatterjee is diabetic, his friend Baisakhi Banerjee said. Mitra had earlier tested positive for Covid-19. “I am having breathing trouble. We are elected representatives. We are not thieves and dacoits. They [CBI] should not have treated us like this,” Mitra told reporters while being shifted to the hospital.
A jail official said that Hakim and Mukherjee could also be sent for a check-up. Mukherjee accompanied Mitra and Chatterjee to the hospital but later returned to the jail. “I am not keeping well. I may have to go for a check-up on Tuesday,” Mukherjee told reporters at the hospital early on Tuesday.
The arrests of the four leaders triggered fierce protests by the Trinamool Congress (TMC) and a six-hour agitation by chief minister Mamata Banerjee.
Banerjee rushed to the CBI’S office at Nizam Palace in south Kolkata soon after the arrests and left after nearly six hours. “Mamata told CBI officials that she should also be arrested,” said a TMC leader aware of the developments.
TMC alleged that CBI was acting on orders by the BJP, which recently lost assembly elections in West Bengal to Banerjee’s party. TMC won 213 seats and BJP could only manage 77. The BJP, however, has denied the allegations.