On November 10, after former TMC second-in-command Mukul Roy spilled ‘part-I’ of the beans he had promised, top TMC leadership was in a hurry to clear themselves and immediately called a press conference, where party national secretary general Partha Chatterjee, perhaps inadvertently said admitted that Roy had been engaged in buying public representatives.
“Everyone knows that he had been buying and selling public representatives...” Chatterjee said in a somewhat knee-jerk reaction to one of the questions shot by a reporter.
It has led to a severe controversy fuelled by ousted TMC leader Kunal Ghosh who was quick on to latch on to it on Saturday, saying, “Partha Chatterjee had specifically alleged that Roy used to engage in horse trading. He should clarify who had been bought and how. In turn, Roy should also come clean about who did he buy the leaders for, why did he do so and what did he pay in return?”
Sources said that prior to 2015 when Roy was called by the CBI for the first time in connection to the Saradha multi-crore ponzi scam, Roy was known to be the closest to Mamata in the party and in order to gain political strength had engineered several defections from all political parties across the board. Opposition leaders had alleged that their leaders from all levels were being poached by enticement or threat. “While some had been promised with posts and money within the ruling party others who did not give in to such allurements were threatened with being implicated in false narcotic cases and other non-bailable sections,” said state Congress president Adhir Chowdhury.
Asked about Chatterjee’s allegation against him, Roy said, “If he has said that I was engaged in horse trading, he must have financed those,” and quipped that after Gujarat elections he would come up with part – II of his revelations.
