Bengal: Police seize Rs 93.83 lakh from SUV; Mamata claims money meant for BJP

PTI, Dec 5, 2022, 6:45 PM IST

A day after Rs 93.83 lakh in cash was seized from a vehicle in West Bengal’s Jalpaiguri district, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Monday alleged that the money was meant for the BJP.

Claiming that central forces were used by the BJP to bring in money, guns and goons to West Bengal, she asked the saffron party leaders to “fight politically”.

”I know this is hawala. All money is coming for the BJP. They are bringing money, goons and guns with the help of central security forces so police cannot even cross-check,” Banerjee told reporters at the Kolkata airport before leaving for New Delhi on Monday afternoon.

Acting on a tip-off, officers of the Binnaguri police outpost intercepted the Bihar-registered SUV on Asian Highway (AH)-48 in the Banarhat area on Sunday evening.

During a search, Rs 93.83 lakh in unaccounted cash was found hidden in the stepney of the vehicle under its rear seat, Jalpaiguri’s Superintendent of Police Biswajit Mahato told PTI.

Five people were arrested in this connection. Of them, four are residents of Bihar, while one person is from Uttar Dinajpur district of West Bengal.

Initial probe revealed that the black SUV was transporting the money from Bihar to Assam’s Guwahati, Mahato said.

”We had to dismantle the stepney to recover the cash which was being smuggled by these five people,” the police officer said.

Reacting to Banerjee’s accusations, BJP vice-president Dilip Ghosh described her as a ”pathological liar”.

He alleged that all the leaders of the Trinamool Congress, starting from the district level to the MP, were corrupt.

”People know from whose houses millions of rupees in cash have been seized. We have seen from where the police recovered arms, bombs and cash. Yet, she (Banerjee) is claiming to be clean… She cannot keep on lying. People are not fools,” Ghosh said.

Banerjee, also the Trinamool Congress supremo, found support in senior CPI(M) leader Sujan Chakraborty who also alleged that a ”dangerous force” like the BJP was smuggling in goons, arms and money in West Bengal.

”The BJP cannot move without goons, arms and money. They are dangerous and have grown bigger in West Bengal with the help of the TMC,” Chakraborty told PTI.

The two parties are not different from each other as their functioning is the same, Chakraborty claimed.