The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Friday summoned West Bengal Public Accounts Committee Chairman (PAC) Krishna Kalyani after ED investigators found his company Kalyani Solvec Pvt. Ltd. to have been involved in laundering money through advertisements to a private TV channel in Kolkata. TMC MLA Kalyani was earlier in the BJP and it was Partha Chatterjee, the prime accused in the SSC recruitment scam, who brought him into the TMC fold.
Sources close to the ED investigations told The Daily Guardian that the ill-gotten money was being channelled into the Kolkata-based private TV channel through advertisements between 2018 and 2022. Business transactions of the TV channel are now under the ED scanner, even as the TMC MLA from Raiganj has been summoned for questioning on Monday.
Meanwhile, ED officials have also seized a white Mercedes-Benz from the tainted former minister Partha Chatterjee’s aide Arpita Mukherjee’s Diamond City complex residence, which the investigators had raided on Wednesday. The investigators are looking for four other cars which have gone missing from her residence after her arrest. The agency officials are trying to identify the cars–Audi A4 WB02AB9561, Honda City WB06T6000, Honda CRV WB06T6001 and Mercedes Benz WB02AE2232 – by looking at the CCTV footage.
During in the day, ED officials took Chatterjee and his aide Mukherjee for a routine medical check-up at Joka ESI Government Hospital. Speaking to the media present there both the former West Bengal minister and his aide said that they were being framed in a conspiracy. “I’ve been framed, I’m a victim of conspiracy,” said Chatterjee.
The ED arrested Chatterjee and his aide Mukherjee on Friday last week when the central agency seized Rs. 21 cr in cash, jewellery and foreign currency from his aide house. The central agency had conducted raids at 14 other places in various districts that day. The ED on Wednesday again seized Rs. 27.90 cr, along with 3 kg of gold bars and jewellery worth Rs. 4.31 cr, after a raid on Mukherjee house in Belgharia. The anti-money laundering agency has so far seized about Rs. 50 cr and other valuables. A mysterious black diary was also recovered by ED officials on Friday last week.
The tainted minister was sacked from the government by Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Thursday, six days after his arrest by the ED. He has been also expelled from the ruling TMC.