13 Trinamool heavyweights arrested so far since 2011

Kolkata, Oct 28 (IANS) Since 2011, when the current Trinamool Congress regime came to power in West Bengal ending the 34-year Left Front regime, a total of 13 heavyweight Trinamool leaders including legislators, MPs and ministers, have been arrested under various charges of corruption.

Barring one, who is the Trinamool Congress spokesman and former party Rajya Sabha member Kunal Ghosh, who was arrested by West Bengal Police in the multi- crore Saradha chit fund scam, all the remaining arrests were made by central agencies like Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and Enforcement Directorate (ED).

In the Saradha chit fund scam, besides Ghosh, the-then party Rajya Sabha member Srinjoy Bose and maverick Trinamool Congress legislator and the-then West Bengal transport minister Madan Mitra were arrested. Both Miitra and Bose were arrested by the CBI sleuths.

Later in the Rose Valley chit fund case, the CBI sleuths arrested heavyweight Trinamool Congress Lok Sabha members Sudip Bandopadhyay and actor-turned-politician Late Tapas Pal. The latter died in February 2020 due to cardiac arrest at the age of 61.

In 2021, the ED sleuths arrested the former Trinamool Congress Rajya Sabha member and the founder of Alchemist Group K.D. Singh in a money- laundering case initiated by the central agency in 2018.

In 2021, immediately after the state Assembly elections, the CBI sleuths arrested two members of West Bengal cabinet -- Late Subrata Mukherjee and Firhad Hakim -- and also the former mayor of Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) Sovan Chattopadhyay and party MLA Madan Mitra in the Narada video tape scandal, where a number of heavyweight party leaders and a police officer were seen accepting cash against promises of doling out favours.

Since 2022 as the central agency sleuths started the investigation in the multi- crore cash- for- school job case in West Bengal, former West Bengal education minister and Trinamool Congress secretary general Partha Chatterjee was the first to be arrested in July last year by the ED sleuths in this case. The arrest of party legislator and former president of West Bengal Board of Primary Education (WBBPE) Manik Bhattacharya by ED and another party MLA Jiban Krishna Saha by the CBI in the matter followed.

Finally, on early Friday morning, the current West Bengal forest minister and former state food & supplies minister Jyotipriya Mallick was arrested by the ED sleuths in connection with the multi- crore ration distribution case in the state.