Trinamool Congress

Enforcement Directorate (ED) sleuths, probing the multi-crore West Bengal Service Commission (WBSSC) recruitment scam, have accessed documents of a luxurious mansion in the name of Mukherjee at Fuldanga area in Bolpur-Santiniketan. The name of the mansion is "APA" - deemed to be derived from the first letter of her name and first two letters of his name. Residents of Fuldanga area have also confirmed that they have seen Chatterjee and Mukherjee coming together to 'APA' several times.

The three companies are Improline Constructions Pvt Ltd, HRI Wealth Creation Realtors Pvt Ltd,and Acrisius Consulting Pvt Ltd. As per records of the Registrar of Companies (ROC) under the Union Ministry of Commerce, while Bhattacharya is the Managing Director in Acrisius Consulting, in the remaining two companies, he is an ordinary Director.

Of the two, Arpita Mukherjee was the first one to be brought to the hospital. She burst into tears as the ED vehicle carrying her reached the hospital premises. She even refused to come out of the vehicle and the female staff of Enforcement Directorate (ED) and the accompanying central armed forces had to virtually drag her out and take her to the hospital building.

This is what he claimed in the affidavit that he filed with the Election Commission, while contesting the 2021 West Bengal Assembly polls from Behala (West) Assembly constituency. In actual, the total asset value as declared in the affidavit was Rs 1,15,94,863 crore, out of which Rs 90,94,863 was movable assets, while Rs 25,00,000 was under the category of immovable assets. The immovable asset, as per the affidavit was two-and-half storey building built over 1.4 cattahs of land, which Chatterjee claimed to have inherited as ancestral property

Breaking her silence on the issue during a state government event to felicitate acclaimed persons from different fields, Banerjee said, "Supporting corruption is neither my passion nor my habit. I cannot say that everyone is innocent. I want to clearly say that the money recovered from the residence of a woman (Arpita Mukherjee in this case) has no connection either with the Trinamool or the state government.

On Saturday evening, the party's stand became official after Trinamool leaders at a press conference announced that the onus of the developments lies with Chatterjee only, and not on the party. The party leaders also made it clear that if he is found guilty of involvement in the scam, Trinamool will not hesitate to take disciplinary action against Chatterjee, who is presently the party's Secretary General.

The ED move came hours after Chatterjee, who is currently the state Commerce and Industries Minister, was arrested by the financial probe agency in the same case on Saturday morning. Mukherjee's arrest from her residence in South Kolkata was officially announced by the ED at 5.14 p.m. on Saturday, about seven hours after the probe agency nabbed Chatterjee.

After the arrest Chatterjee was taken to a Union government-owned ESI Hospital at Joka in the southern outskirts of Kolkata for a routine medical check- up. While coming out of the hospital, Chatterjee for the first time spoke to the media and expressed his concern over inability to contact Mamata Banerjee. "I do not know where they are taking me.

For the first two hours of the commerce & industries minister's arrest from his residence in South Kolkata's Naktala, there was no statement from the party. Finally at around 12.15 p.m, Trinamool Congress's state general secretary and the party spokesman Kunal Ghosh came out with an extremely loaded statement denying any association of the party or the state government with the development especially with the issue of recovery of huge amount of cash from the residence of Chatterjee's confidante and close aide Arpita Mukherjee.

The cash seized from the residence of Arpita Mukherjee, known to be a close aide of Chatterjee, amounts to around Rs 20 crore. The ED sleuths have also recovered 20 mobile phones from the posh residence of Mukherjee at the Diamond City complex in Tollygunge. The officials believe that these mobile phones will provide crucial links to the teachers' recruitment scam in WBSSC and WBBPE. The ED sleuths called some bank officials for counting purposes who arrived at Mukherjee's residence with currency counting machines.