Kolkata: Pranab Bhattacharya, one of the drivers of Arpita Mukherjee who drove her car only when she used to go out of her residence to meet her mentor and former West Bengal minister Partha Chatterjee, is likely to be questioned by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) officials probing the West Bengal School Service Commission (WBSSC) scam to collect more information about those meetings.
ED sources on Monday said the officials are trying to gather information from all possible links and since Bhattacharya was present at the Diamond City housing complex on July 22 when the ED sleuths started their search operations in Arpita’s flat there, his questioning could be required at some point.
Meanwhile, Bhattacharya, who is lamenting that he might have to forgo his unpaid salary for the month of July 2022, as Arpita is currently in ED custody, has claimed that his primary task now is to get another driving job to run his family.
He also admitted that Arpita Mukherjee appointed him as her driver following the reference of Partha Chatterjee.
According to Bhattacharya, he was referred to Chatterjee for a job by a local leader of the constituency that the former minister represented as an MLA.
Soon, he was contacted from the minister’s office and he got the job.
Bhattacharya has also claimed that although Arpita Mukherjee had other drivers in her payroll, he was preferred by her in the driver’s seat whenever she used to go out of her Diamond Park residence, especially when she went to meet Partha Chatterjee. He was appointed as her driver in January this year.
Arpita Mukherjee’s sister’s husband, Kalyan Dhar was also appointed as her driver. However, probably because of family relations, Arpita Mukherjee avoided taking him as a driver while going out.
Later, it was learnt that Dhar was also inducted as a director in three companies namely Symbiosis Merchants Private Limited, Sentry Engineering Private Limited and Echhay Entertainment Private Limited, where she was also a director.
(IANS)
