Mamata shielding party leaders, deflecting focus in Saradha scam: Singhvi

Kolkata, April 26 (IANS) Going all guns blazing against West Bengal's ruling Trinamool Congress and its supremo Mamata Banerjee on the multi-crore rupee Saradha chit fund scam, the Congress Saturday charged the regime with "hiding facts" and shielding its leaders involved in the scandal.

Congress national spokesperson Abhishek Manu Singhvi also accused the Trinamool of attempting to "deflect" the truth and questioned the state government's "vehement opposition" to a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) probe.

Making graft the thrust of his stringent attack against the Trinamool, Singhvi said the list of corrupt practices involving the regime was "endless".

"In the Supreme Court, the most vehement opposition to any part of the inquiry being conducted by the CBI is coming from the state government," he told media persons here.

The Saradha scam -- the biggest such scandal to hit the state -- came to light in April last year when the company closed shop across Bengal, unable to pay back depositors, many of whom were from poorer sections of society.

As the company went bust, many agents and investors committed suicide, and protests took place across the state. Saradha promoter Sudipta Sen is now under arrest.

The scam is back in the limelight following the recent arrest of scam kingpin Sudipta Sen's wife and son by the central agency Enforcement Directorate.

"Why is the state government so keen to hide things for a scam of this proportion? Why are they not prepared to leave criminality to an agency like the CBI?" Singhvi asked.

Reacting to a query on the Shyamal Sen commission formed by the state government in the aftermath of the scam returning money to the depositors, he said criminal negligence also has to be fixed.

"Please continue do much more than what the Syamal Sen Commission has done.But where have you learnt this law that by distributing money you will avoid criminality?"

Singhvi tore apart the government for "desperately trying to protect" tainted Trinamool members and leaders and attempting to deflect attention from them.

"There are MPs from the Trinamool, contesting candidates, political leaders from the state...all are involved."

Taking a dig at Banerjee's claim of personal honesty and maintaining an austere lifestyle, he said: "What is the use of talking about simplicity, cleanliness, when you don't have the moral and political courage to act against your own people, who have defrauded the poor people of the state about whom you shed crocodile tears every day?"

Highlighting the scandals in the state, including the primary teacher recruitment controversy, Singhvi remarked: "Anywhere you dig, any scandal you find, you find big TMC names behind it."

Quizzed about the role of central agencies in preventing the scam, he contended that the agencies "aren't in any manner complicit in the same style or manner in which the TMC has been found all along in your state for the last two years to be complicit".