All TMC leaders will be behind bars for 'looting public': BJP

Saffron party adds, BJP leaders are being arrested and harassed by implicating them in false cases

Dismissing any "political patch-up" with Trinamool Congress (TMC) over a probe into chit fund scams, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) national secretary Rahul Sinha on Monday said the day would soon come when the entire TMC leadership would be behind bars for "looting public money".

Accusing the state government of pursuing vendetta politics against BJP leaders in West Bengal, he claimed, "Our leaders are being arrested and harassed by implicating them in false cases. They are being beaten up regularly."

"We believe in maintaining political courtesy and decency, but that doesn't mean you will do anything you want. If we want we can tie up all TMC MPs to trees when they visit Delhi. But we won't do it as we believe in political courtesy," Sinha said.

"Some newspapers are writing that there is a TMC-BJP patch-up, but these reports are wrong and baseless. Let the UP elections be over, you will find the entire TMC leadership behind bars for looting public money," he said at a rally, "Save Democracy Save Bengal", in Kolkata.

Sinha's comment came as the CBI did not make any fresh arrest in the last one month after TMC MPs Tapas Pal and Sudip Bandyopadhyay were held by the probe agency for their alleged involvement in Rose Valley Scam.

Reacting to Sinha's remark, Trinamool leader Partha Chatterjee said, "The comment only shows that the CBI is being used by BJP to serve its political interests. We have been saying for a long time that CBI is being used for political vendetta."

Asking Trinamool to "mend its ways", state BJP chief Dilip Ghosh said, "TMC should not think that it can do whatever it wants to. We also have hands and legs and they do function properly."

Speaking at the rally, BJP national general secretary Kailash Vijayvargiya asked party leaders to march to the CBI office in Salt Lake and demand for increasing the pace of its probe.

"People who have been duped should get back their money. People have some expectations from the Modi government and we have to live up to those expectations," he said.