Kolkata, June 10:
The West Bengal CID on Tuesday launched simultaneous searches at Trinamool Congress’s central office at party supremo Mamata Banerjee’s Kalighat residence and at national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee’s Camac Street office in the city, probing alleged forged signatures of TMC MLAs that triggered a party split.
The agency officers maintained that the raids were held to dredge out the original copy of TMC’s meeting resolution book and attendance sheet containing signatures of 70 MLAs present at the May 6 meeting held the party office adjacent to former chief minister Mamata Banerjee’s residence.
Both Mamata Banerjee and Abhishek were out of town, at the national capital for their scheduled meetings with leaders of the opposition INDIA bloc.
According to the CID, Abhishek Banerjee, based on the said resolution, had first intimated the Speaker of the Bengal assembly, on May 9, that the party had chosen Sobhabdeb Chattopadhyay as the assembly’s Leader of Opposition, Asima Patra and Nayna Bandyopadhyay as deputy LoPs and Firhad Hakim as the chief whip.Agency officers said that Abhishek followed up the intimation with a written communication to the Speaker on May 20, where he enclosed a copy of the meeting resolution book and the attendance sheet, reiterating the party’s endorsement for the assembly posts.