Nabanna mum on Parui verdict

KOLKATA: Durga Puja is less than a week away, but the festive mood was missing at Nabanna on Wednesday as the state government got yet another jolt from court. With the Saradha scam already being probed by the CBI, the high court on Wednesday handed over the Parui investigation, too, to the central agency.
No one at the state secretariat wanted to state their reaction to the Parui probe judgment.State law minister Chandrima Bhattacharya merely said: “I cannot say anything in this matter. I have not yet gone through the court judgment.” But the tension in the secretariat was palpable as some of the ministers kept the television sets in their rooms switched off.
Sources in the secretariat said the chief minister had held a meeting with the chief secretary, home secretary and judicial secretary at Nabanna to discuss what further steps the state government could take. According to sources, Mamata Banerjee came to Nabanna after 11.30am. She held the task force meeting on vegetable price rise and went through some files before leaving for the day at 5.30pm to inaugurate a puja pandal in the south.
A section of officials said in the previous years, they have seen a festive mood at Writers’ Buildings from the onset of Mahayala, but this time the mood is missing.
Reactions came in on the judgment, but from outside Nabanna. “CBI has so many cases to deal with. It gets yet another one. It is the courts that observed that the agency is a puppet and it is again the courts that give this case to them. Let us see what happens,” said Partha Chatterjee, not as a minister but as the secretary general of Trinamool Congress at the party headquarters.
“Sagar Ghosh’s family has joined our party. We tried to help them in every way we could. We welcome the verdict, which showed that from administration to police, everyone has lost credibility in the state and are mere puppets in the hands of the ruling party,” said BJP state president Rahul Sinha.
“The verdict is welcome. The chief minister, who is also the home minister, is shielding party musclemen like Anubrata Mandal, Monirul Islam and Arabul Islam, who are spreading terror in the districts. It seems that the chief secretary, home secretary and even the DGP colluded with the ruling party and failed in their duty,” said CPM central committee member Md Selim.
“It is a shame for the government. Common man has no trust in the government or administration or police,” said state Congress leader Abdul Mannan.