BJP questions silence of opposition over Mamata row

Patna: Former Union law minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said the Supreme Court observations on Thursday regarding the situation created by West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee during the ED raids in Kolkata raised serious questions about the state of affairs in the neighbouring state.

Addressing a press conference at the BJP office in Patna on Friday, the Patna Sahib MP said the court had been apprised of suspicious evidence of Rs 20 crore linked to money laundering in the coal scam found with the I-PAC company.




Referring to the multi-crore fodder scam, Prasad said even at that time, the CBI office in Patna was never attacked. “It was a ridiculous scene to witness for the first time in the history of independent India, a CM and senior state police officers arriving at the scene during an investigation and leaving with the files. The TMC's legal cell also informed everyone to come to the high court to stop the hearing. This fact was conveyed to the Supreme Court,” he said.

He taunted the opposition, asking why those who talk about the Constitution remain silent. “Why are Rahul Gandhi, Tejashwi Yadav, Stalin, or the Left parties, who talk about the Constitution every day, silent when a CM snatches files during an investigation into a corruption case? Their double standards are now evident to everyone. They are also silent on the utterly unconstitutional conduct that has occurred,” Prasad said.

“This is a coal scam of nearly Rs 3,000 crore in Bengal. Since I myself have been the Union coal minister, I have considerable knowledge of what happens in coal mines in Bengal. But this has gone very far under the Trinamool Congress, because the administration is under their control,” he alleged.