A day after he expressed apprehension that ‘something will happen within four-five days’, the Enforcement Directorate on Tuesday summoned Abhishek Banerjee to appear before them on Friday in relation to the Coal Scam case.
Banerjee, the all-powerful nephew of Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee, was asked to appear at the ED office at the CGO complex in Kolkata.
Sources told The New Indian that the court order states that Abhishek Banerjee can only be questioned in Kolkata. “So the ED officials will be arriving from Delhi to question the Trinamool Congress general secretary,” the source said.
Attacking the Bharatiya Janata Party-led central government, TMC MP Shantanu Sen said, “It is a shameful and revengeful political vendetta of the Bharatiya Jumla Party that got nakedly exposed. They are scared. Abhishek Banerjee has exposed the anti-patriotic attitude of Amit Shah’s son (Jay Shah) in Dubai when he refused to hold the national flag after the glorious victory of the Indian cricket team.”
Incidentally, on Monday, Abhishek Banerjee said, “I am telling you that something will happen within four-five days because they do not have the capability to fight politically…” He was speaking on the occasion of the foundation day of the TMC’s student wing, Trinamool Chhatra Parishad, near Gandhi Murti in Mayo Road in Kolkata.
Speaking at the same rally, Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee stated, “Today Abhishek gave such a fantastic speech, tomorrow they might send him notice too. If they send him to notice I will ask him to take along his two-year-old child so that they realise how strong even the child is.”
Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) registered a First Information Report (FIR) in November 2020 alleging a multi-crore coal smuggling scam related to Eastern Coalfields Limited mines in Bengal’s Kunustoria and Kajora areas in and around Asansol.
In November 2020, the CBI registered a case. It also alleged that illegally mined coal, worth several thousand crores of rupees, has been sold on the black market.
CBI visited Abhishek Banerjee’s residence on February 21, 2021, and summoned his wife Rujira and his sister-in-law Menaka Gambhir in connection with the case.
The ED had lodged a case based on the FIR. The central agency had summoned eight IPS officers earlier this month for questioning in the case.
TMC youth leader Vinay Mishra and local coal operator Anup Majhi are prime accused in the case. Majhi is allegedly a close associate of Abhishek Banerjee.