THE CBI and the ED are covering up crimes instead of arresting the main culprits. It has been 10 years since the Saradha chit fund scam happened. Eight years have passed since the Narada scam. Still the culprits have not been prosecuted. In other cases too, dilly-dallying is going on. Even the court is being forced to take this dismal failure seriously. To protest against this, the CPI(M) West Bengal state committee has decided to organise a massive march to the CBI office located at the CGO Complex in Salt Lake on October 5. The march will demand that law must be allowed to take its own course and the masterminds of corruption should be arrested and punished according to the law.

The decision was taken at the recently concluded state committee meeting of the Party held on September 12-13. Then in a press conference, Party state secretary Mohammad Salim said that this was a pre-announced programme. We have adopted the programme as part of our movement against corruption and the rule of miscreants. We have said earlier that we will not spare the CBI-ED if they do not complete the investigation and punish the corrupt leaders before the puja time. The Calcutta High Court is also questioning ED-CBI as to why there is no charge sheet. There was a lot of hype that the governor would do something terrible at twelve o'clock on September 11th night, but then nothing happened. ED-CBI is summoning bigwigs, but doing nothing. The people of the state want the corrupt to be punished; this inaction is an insult to them, he said.

Salim alleged that these criminals are being let off with the connivance of the ruling parties at the centre and the state. He demanded punishment of corrupt people irrespective of their political affiliations.

STATEWIDE CAMPAIGN
He said that before the march to the CBI office in Kolkata, CPI (M) workers will go to people across the state and understand the local demands, people’s sufferings and problems, which will be highlighted in the upcoming movement and struggle. The Left Front government planned and built new power plants, now loadshedding is happening again. Misunderstanding them as “local faults”, people are getting angry with electricity department workers. Similarly, after the near-destruction of the education sector, people are being instigated against the teaching community. Price rise has reached a peak. The government’s malfunction is causing collapse in all areas from public distribution to public transport. Various mass organisations are already protesting against these. The CPI(M) is supporting their movement and trying to consolidate all their demands.

Asked about Abhishek Banerjee’s alleged involvement in corruption cases, Salim said these are “court-directed” or “court-monitored” investigations. Abhishek Banerjee, CEO of Leaps and Bounds company, reportedly concealed truth in an affidavit. People wonder how can a shell company that has no products, no sales, make huge profits? Various news and opinions exist across the public domain regarding where that money actually came from and then how it was siphoned off abroad, where it is kept and so forth.

Reacting to BJP leader Suvendu Adhikari's appeal to Left workers to join the BJP to oppose the ruling Trinamool, Salim said that when he (Adhikari) was in the Trinamool, he along with the Maoists got CPI(M) workers killed. We don’t need his supposed sympathy. Let him mind the affairs of his party. When we said, 'Catch the thieves and jail them', BJP said, ‘No, get them into our party’. Many grassroots workers of the BJP have now realised this and started supporting the agenda of the Left, Salim added.