Trinamool Congress (TMC) chief Mamata Banerjee on Tuesday met Congress parliamentary chief Sonia Gandhi at the latter’s residence in Delhi, hours before West Bengal’s Criminal Investigation Department (CID) conducted simultaneous searches at the party’s central office in Kolkata and at national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee’s office on Camac Road.
According to people familiar with the matter, the two leaders held an hour-long discussion on coordination of voters of the Indian Inclusive Development Alliance (INDIA) bloc at Sonia Gandhi’s residence No. 10 in Janpath. This was the first meeting between the two leaders after a gap of five years. In 2021, Banerjee came to meet Gandhi after securing the third consecutive term in West Bengal. TMC Rajya Sabha floor leader Derek O’Brien accompanied Banerjee to the meeting.
Mamata Banerjee, who is fighting defections in the MLA and Parliament, was in the capital to attend the India Caucus meeting on Monday.
According to a senior Congress leader, the meeting is unlikely to translate into a major political realignment in Bengal. “The meeting with Gandhi is an important political gesture on the part of Mamata Banerjee. But for all practical purposes, any reorganization may be difficult.”
“Sonia Gandhi is a woman of stature… At the end of the day, this is a family that has shown tolerance towards Rajiv Gandhi’s killers,” Bangladesh Congress unit president Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury said.
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Meanwhile in West Bengal, two teams of the CID raided the TMC’s central office in Kalighat and Abhishek Banerjee’s office in Kamak Street as part of its probe into the alleged forged signatures of TMC MLAs in favor of Subhabdeep Chattopadhyay as leader of the opposition sparking rebellion within the party.
“CID teams reached two headquarters in south Kolkata – both linked to TMC and Abhishek Banerjee. He was summoned thrice in connection with the signature forgery case but he skipped…,” an agency official said.
Officers told PTI that the raids were carried out to snatch away the original copy of the TMC meeting decision book and attendance sheet containing signatures of 70 MLAs present at the May 6 meeting held at the party office adjacent to the former chief minister’s residence.
When the CID team reached Kalighat, they were initially denied entry to the building due to the absence of Mamata and Abhishek. Later, a scuffle broke out between the team and former TMC Rajya Sabha member Subhasish Chakraborty. However, the CID team called in the central forces and they entered the office to conduct the search. The team, which reached Abhishek’s office, also faced initial resistance from the staff, but was able to conduct searches.
Two expelled TMC legislators – Ritabrata Banerjee and Sundipan Saha – have filed a complaint before TMC Speaker Rathendra Bose that their signatures had been forged on the May 19 letter, which the TMC had sent to the TMC secretariat nominating Subhandeep as the MP. The letter was signed by Abhishek Banerjee and bore the address of TMC Office 30B Harish Chatterjee Road in Kalighat.
The CID took over the investigation from Kolkata Police on May 28, a day after the Hare Street police station registered a case on the basis of a complaint by the principal secretary of the association on charges of cheating, forgery and criminal conspiracy.
