BJP uses agencies for political witch-hunting as they suffer from 'Abhishek-Phobia': TMC

Kolkata: The Trinamool Congress on Thursday lashed out at the BJP for "politically manipulating" the central agencies for political witch-hunting and accused it of suffering from "Abhishek-phobia" in the backdrop of the ED summoning its national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee.

Banerjee has been summoned by the ED on November 9 in connection with the alleged school jobs scam.

"The BJP has been using CBI and ED to serve its political interests. The repeated summons to Abhishek Banerjee is nothing but political witch-hunting. The BJP is suffering from 'Abhishek phobia' as they have been unable to fight us politically. They are tremendously afraid of him," TMC MP Santanu Sen told PTI.

The senior TMC leader alleged that the central agencies have been harassing the family members of Abhishek, too.

The TMC on Tuesday criticised BJP, likening it to a "washing machine" that transforms corrupt individuals into virtuous figures upon joining the saffron party.

Reacting to TMC's claims, BJP leader Rahul Sinha had dubbed its allegations of using CBI and ED to harass Banerjee as "baseless".

"If they have any grievances, they can move court. Whenever the TMC leaders get summoned by the CBI or ED, they blame us (the BJP). The entire country knows that the TMC is a corrupt party," he said.

In June, the ED had sent a notice to Banerjee summoning him to appear before it on June 13 for a probe into alleged illegal appointments in government and government-sponsored primary school jobs scam in West Bengal. He then declined to comply, citing his engagements with the mass outreach campaign and the July rural polls in the state.

On September 13, he had faced questioning by ED for nine hours in connection with the school job scam.

The two-time TMC MP had also been questioned by the ED twice in the coal pilferage case, once in the agency's office in the national capital in 2021 and again in Kolkata in 2022.

He had faced nine hours of questioning by CBI on May 20 in connection with its investigation into the primary school jobs scam.