Political slugfest erupts in Bengal over arrest of minister Jyotipriya Mallick

Kolkata: A massive political slugfest has erupted in West Bengal following the arrest of state forest minister and former state food & supplies minister Jyotipriya Mallick on Friday by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) in connection with the multi-crore ration distribution case in West Bengal.

While Trinamool Congress leadership has echoed Mallick's conspiracy theory against him by BJP, the Opposition leaders have claimed that "more and bigger influential" personalities in the ruling party will be netted by the central agencies in the coming days.

According to Trinamool Congress's state spokesman Kunal Ghosh, Mallick's arrest was the result of conspiracy hatched by BJP where the principal mastermind in the conspiracy was the Leader of the Opposition (LoP) in the state Assembly Suvendu Adhikari.

"The person who had been in the central agency custody himself in relation to his involvement in the Saradha chit fund and Narada video scam is now hatching the conspiracy whose latest victim is Mallick," Ghosh said.

The LoP has countered claiming that the rate at which the ministers and ruling party legislators are being netted by central agencies time is not far away when the meetings of the state cabinet will have to be conducted at a correction home.

CPI(M) central committee member Dr Sujan Chakraborty claimed that the ration distribution scam is one of the biggest scams in West Bengal in the recent past, where every week ration items meant for 2.5 crore of people are being looted by the minister and leaders of the ruling party.

The state Congress president and five-time party Lok Sabha member Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury claimed that the alleged ration distribution scam seems to be of bigger magnitude than of the cash-for-school job case in the state. "This is organised loot conducted mainly during the lockdown period in wake of COVID-19 pandemic," Chowdhury said.