'Wouldn't Have Joined Politics If I Knew It's So Dirty; Is Coal Scam Money Going to Maa Kali?': Mamata

The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has issued fresh summons to Trinamool Congress MP Abhishek Banerjee to appear before it on Friday in connection with its ongoing investigation into the coal smuggling scam.

TMC leaders say that the ED and the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) start acting against them around party events. The summons for Abhishek Banerjee came after the foundation day celebrations of the Trinamool Chhatra Parishad (TMCP), the students’ wing of Trinamool Congress, on August 28.

Party chairperson and West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee said, “The agency summons are not just vindictive politics, it’s open violence… I would not have joined politics if I knew that politics would become this dirty.“

She again alleged that the issues of cattle and coal smuggling are the responsibility of the union home ministry and the central government.

“One cannot fool everyone all the time…The way you are slandering us in mass media without evidence, the kind of language you use and quote ‘sources’… You should think about what would happen if the same were done to you…We will not take things lying down,” she said.

Bharatiya Janata Party leaders have repeatedly alleged that the money from cattle and coal smuggling goes to Kolkata’s Kalighat, where Mamata Banerjee lives, an area famous for its Kali temple.

“You allege that corruption proceeds are reaching Kalighat. I am asking, who in Kalighat? Maa Kali? Can you give a specific name?” she said.

The TMC says the ruling BJP at the Centre has been using the ED and CBI to target states where rivals are in power.

The Left and Congress though have alleged that there is a “setting” between Mamata and the BJP. Reacting to this, she said, “I don’t indulge in setting politics… I am not good at it…I have never been able to do it…Had I been a good setting politician, I would not have been at the receiving end of Left politics, bearing injury marks all over my body, unlike some politicians in Congress who sold themselves away.”

Mamata also announced various promotions, uniform allowance, compensatory appointments, and an increase in the upper age limit for police officials across many categories ahead of State Police Day, on September 1. Many police personnel will benefit from this, she said.

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