Facing the heat in the multi-crore Saradha chit fund scam, the ruling Trinamool Congress in West Bengal today sought to deflect the chit fund letter bomb by the prime accused to its erstwhile ally Congress.
As protests continued in several parts of West Bengal and Assam over the collapse of the chit fund company leaving thousands of poor investors in the lurch, Sudipta Sen, the prime accused, and two other accomplices were remanded to 14 days police custody by a court in Kolkata.
Sen, the Saradha Group's chairman along with accomplices Debjani and Arvind Singh Chouhan, were charged under IPC sections 406 (criminal breach of trust), 420 (cheating) and 506 (criminal intimidation).
Without taking any name, TMC raised questions over the role of a senior Chennai-based lawyer who is married to a Congress union minister after Sen in a purported letter to CBI named Nalini Chidambaram among others.
A Congress union minister AH Khan Chowdhury, who wrote to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh when he was MP regarding the Saradha group, was also accused by the TMC of supporting the chit fund company.
Sources close to Nalini Chidambaram rejected the allegation that she applied pressure on Saradha Group to invest in a northeast television channel. Instead, she advised the channel against accepting funds from Saradha Group, the sources said.
Chowdhury on his part accused the TMC of "using the Congress to cover up their fault".
The TMC, however, hit back saying the Congress must probe why its MP did a U-turn within six months. Demanding Chowdhury's resignation, TMC MP Derek O'Brien said, "In September 2011, Chowdhury wrote a letter demanding strict action against Saradha group. Within six months, he does a U-turn and says the company be spared. The Congress has to give serious answers why its minister did this U-turn."
Chowdhury defended himself saying that he met Saradha group promoter Sudipta Sen only six months after the second letter he had written to Singh defending Saradha Realty.
"In my previous note (a letter dated September 2011 in which he demands action against Saradha group) I had made some errors. It was a mistaken identity and I would be sued, so I had to change my opinion... I mistook Sudipta to be someone else... I met Sudipta only six months after my second letter," he said.
Troubles also mounted for the Saradha group with the Centre ordering a Serious Fraud Investigation Office (SFIO) probe into suspected misuse of the public money by various chit fund companies and a special task force has been set up for this purpose.
