Bengal recruitment scam: TMC MP Abhishek Banerjee reaches ED office in Kolkata
Kolkata/IBNS: Trinamool Congress national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee on Wednesday arrived at the Enforcement Directorate's office here following the summons sent by the central probe agency which is investigating the teacher recruitment scam in West Bengal.
Abhishek, the nephew of West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, reached the ED office at CGO Complex in Kolkata's Salt Lake area at around 11:30 am.
Amidst tight security arrangements, Abhishek, a two-term Lok Sabha MP, entered the CGO Complex and waved at the reporters from the backseat of his car.
The central agency, tasked to probe money laundering cases, asked Abhishek to appear before it on the very day he was scheduled to attend the maiden coordination committee meeting of the INDIA alliance in New Delhi.
Mamata alleged that Abhishek was being "unnecessarily harassed".
"This is political vendetta. Abhishek is being unnecessarily harassed. There should not be vindictiveness, it might boomerang as well," said the Trinamool Congress supremo.
The scam involved appointments as teachers and non-teaching staff in state-run schools through illegal means.
Abhishek, who is the second most important leader of the ruling party, got his name cropped up in the job scam case after arrested (now expelled) TMC youth leader Kuntal Ghosh said he was being pressured to take the name of the former.
In 2021, former state Education Minister Partha Chatterjee was arrested in the jobs scam after a huge cash of money worth Rs. 50 crore was seized from his aide Arpita Mukherjee's two flats.