What's Partha Chatterjee's alleged connection with Arpita Mukherjee? Why was Partha Chatterjee arrested?

Partha Chatterjee, West Bengal's Minister of Industry, Commerce, and Enterprise, was on Saturday arrested by the Enforcement Directorate. The action came a day after the central agency recovered Rs 20 crore from his alleged associate, Arpita Mukherjee. Today a viral video showed a truck arriving at Mukherjee's house carrying huge steel boxes, to ferry the recovered money. 

Who is Arpita Mukherjee?

Arpita Mukherjee is allegedly a close associate of Partha Chatterjee. She is an actor who appeared in several regional language films over the years. She has worked in some Odia, Bengal, and Tamil movies. She describes herself on her Facebook profile as a versatile actor. She acted in Mama Bhagne in 2009 opposite Bengali superstar Prosenjit Chatterjee and Partner alongside Jeet. Arpita Mukherjee also spearheaded Partha Chatterjee's Puja Committee campaign in 2019 and 2020. Unconfirmed reports say Chatterjee regularly visits her house in Kolkata.

What's Partha Chatterjee accused of?

Partha Chatterjee is accused of earning money illegally by getting kickbacks for recruiting teachers for state-run schools when he was the education minister of West Bengal.

He is accused of appointing hundreds of teachers and non-teaching staff in return for money and other forms of bribes. The Enforcement Directorate said he had allegedly appointed them in positions they were not qualified for. He has been charged under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act.

The Enforcement Directorate said apart from cash, they also find a trove of incriminating documents, details of dubious companies, electronic devices, foreign currency and gold from the premises of other government officials linked to the alleged scam.

Trinamool Congress spokesperson Kunal Ghosh said the party is not connected with the recovery of the unaccounted cash.

With inputs from Reuters