Kolkata: On Saturday afternoon, while the Enforcement Directorate (ED) sleuths were conducting raids at the residence of city-based businessman, Nasir Khan and his son Amir Khan, two senior ministers of the West Bengal cabinet described the central agency actions as a ploy of the Union government to destroy the state’s economy.
“These continuous raids and search operations by the central agencies, in my opinion, are part of the Union government and BJP’s ploy to show West Bengal in bad light and to destroy the state’s economy. Often, we hear of income tax raids at the residences of businessmen in Kolkata. But those raids do not result in any recovery. I have nothing to say in cases where there is recovery. But such excessive central agency actions, in my opinion, is a ploy to throw a negative image about West Bengal to potential investors,” said the state commerce & industries minister and the Kolkata mayor, Firhad Hakim.
The time when he made this comment, the amount of cash recovered from Nasir Khan’s residence at Shahi Astabal Lane in Garden ReachAarea on the southern outskirts of Kolkata increased to Rs 8 crore, while the counting of notes was still on.
State transport minister Snehasish Chakraborty said that this excessive use of ED and CBI by the Union government with a political intention is destroying the credibility of these central agencies. “Central agencies should be used diligently,” he added.
However, the comments of the minister have attracted ridicules from the opposition party leader. The CPI(M) central committee member, Sujan Chakraborty said that ill-gotten and illegally earned money is everywhere in West Bengal. ‘Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee is running a regime of forgery here,” he said.
State Congress president, Adhir Ranjan Cho0wdhury said that unaccounted money can be traced from the residences of all Trinamool Congress leaders. “We witnessed the similar thing in the case of teachers’ recruitment scam in the state. I do not know what the chief minister will say now,” he said.
(IANS)
