Am victim of 'conspiracy' hatched by my own party: TMC MLA on CBI raid

Trinamool Congress MLA Tapas Saha on Saturday called himself a victim of "conspiracy" hatched by his own party colleagues which led to marathon CBI raids at his residence and office in connection with the multi-crore teachers' recruitment scam in West Bengal.

Saha, an MLA from Tehatta Assembly constituency in Nadia district, interacted with the media persons after the completion of the marathon 15-hour Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) raid that started on last evening.

"I am a victim of conspiracy hatched by my own party leader from the district Tina Bhowmik Saha and her associates. They have joined hands with BJP in conspiring against me." Saha said.

After the marathon raid and search operations, this morning, the CBI sleuths left with two seized mobile phones of Saha besides some paper documents.

Speaking to the media persons, Saha did not hide his grievance against his own party leadership for not standing by him or evening contacting him during this moment of crisis. "No one from the party contacted me. I am saying it again that I am a victim of conspiracy hatched by a section within my own party," Saha said.

However, he expressed his confidence over the Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and said that he will continue with his struggle against this conspiracy against him with her blessings.

He, however, said that he was unsure whether he enjoyed similar support from party's national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee since he could not contact the second- in-command over telephone.

The CBI at Saha's residence and office started on Friday evening. The first thing that the central agency sleuths did was to confiscate his mobile phones, probably taking lessons from another Trinamool MLA Jiban Krishna Saha, who has been arrested in the same scam, throwing his two cellphones in a pond adjacent to his house as soon as the CBI team reached there to conduct a raid.

Saha is the fourth Trinamool MLA to come under the scanner of central agencies in connection with the recruitment scam after former Education Minister Partha Chatterjee, ex-Chairman of West Bengal Board of Primary Education Manik Bhattacharya and Jiban Krishna Saha.

While Chatterjee and Bhattacharya are currently in judicial custody, Jiban Krishna Saha is in the custody of CBI.

--IANS

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