KOLKATA: Asserting that she and her party were wilfully maligned over chitfunds issue, Trinamool Congress supremo Mamata Banerjee today vowed to take revenge and prove the allegations wrong.
“I have been insulted and maligned over this issue. If I get a chance in my life, I will take revenge; only to prove that the allegations are wrong,” the West Bengal chief minister said.
“Nothing has been done against those who are really involved,” Banerjee said about investigations against her party and some of her leaders, including the arrest of former Transport Minister Madan Mitra.
“It is during the tenure of CPI(M) that the chit funds, including Saradha Group, had flourished, but there has been no investigation on that,” she said.
“The investigations are being done post-2010 when our government came to power, leaving out those during whose tenure all these chit fund companies were set up and flourished,” Banerjee said.
Asked about the arrest of Mitra by CBI in connection with the Saradha chitfund scam, she said “such arrests don’t mean anything, they have the means and tools.”
“There will definitely be justice, it has hurt me a lot,” she said.
Asked whether she would take up the matter in courts, Banerjee said “why will I fight in courts, I will fight in elections.”
On Mitra being renominated by TMC despite being in jail, she said, “He became a minister in 2011, while Saradha started its business in 2000.
“Why did not the CPI(M) do anything to stop these businesses. Neither the RBI nor SEBI take any step against these entities,” she said while giving a clean chit to Mitra.
“It is we who took action and gave back money lakhs of hapless investors and now we are being blamed,” she said.
“Is this investigation or a sham in the name of a probe,” she said, questioning the CBI investigation.
PTI