Political slugfest in Bengal over fresh ED summons to Abhishek Banerjee

Pic/PTI

Political slugfest has started surfacing in West Bengal over the Enforcement Directorate (ED)'s fresh summons on Sunday evening to Trinamool Congress' national general secretary and the party's Lok Sabha member Abhishek Banerjee asking the latter to be present for questioning at the agency's office on September 13 in connection with the multi-crore cash-for-school job case in the state.

Echoing Banerjee, Trinamool Congress' Rajya Sabha member Santanu Sen said the ED has deliberately chosen September 13 as the date for summoning, since on that day there will be the first meeting of the coordination committee of the INDIA bloc in Delhi, at which Banerjee is likely to be present.

"The ruling party in the country is scared of INDIA and they have understood that the people of the country are united under INDIA alliance to oust the current Union government out of power. This is not the first time that Abhishek Banerjee has been summoned on days on which he had crucial political engagements," he said.

Meanwhile, West Bengal BJP spokesperson Samik Bhattacharya said that the people of the state are tired of the theory of "conspiracy" and "vendetta" by central agencies as floated by Trinamool Congress time and again. "The central agencies carry out their investigations according to their own patterns and there is no question of conspiracy in the matter," said Bhattacharya.

CPI-M central committee member Sujan Chakraborty said that it cannot continue for an indefinite period that someone will continuously skip summons from the central agencies. "I doubt that Abhishek Banerjee has been deliberately summoned on that day so that he can skip that summons, citing the coordination committee meeting as an excuse," he said.

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