After ED summons, TMC and BJP trade words

Midnapore: Trinamool Congress and BJP on Sunday sparred over the Enforcement Directorate’s summons to TMC national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee and his wife Rujira. Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee had on Saturday said the brazen use of agencies such as ED and CBI would not be able to save BJP from voters’ ire.

On Sunday, Trinamool’s Rajya Sabha leader Derek O’Brien alleged that the Union home minister had drawn up a plan for remitting all cases through ED. Taking to Twitter, Derek posted: “A sparrow in Delhi tells me that the new CBI chief may have directed a few top officials not to act too brazenly. Harassing the opposition only benefits one party. So HeMan (HM) has a new plan. He is now remitting all cases through the Extremely Dedicated (ED) director who obeys HM.”

Bengal BJP spokesperson Shamik Bhattacharya said Derek was casting aspersions on probe agencies in an unfair manner. “The TMC sees the invisible hand of BJP in everything,” he said.

Bengal BJP president Dilip Ghosh claimed Trinamool was trying to hide the crimes against people by opposing the CBI investigation. “Mamata Banerjee knows what CBI is. While in the opposition, she always demanded a CBI probe and now, she is trying to shield her partymen by claiming CBI probe is not needed,” he said in Midnapore after an organizational meeting.

On Saturday night, Trinamool spokesperson Kunal Ghosh had said that party workers were being threatened in Tripura. “But BJP doesn’t know we have passed through these kinds of phases in our childhood. People are with TMC and the BJP is scared,” he said.