New
Delhi: A tape of a two-year-old "sting operation" titled "X
-Files" by news portal Narada
surfaced on Monday showing Trinamool Congress (TMC) members taking cash to
allegedly work as lobbyists for a fictitious corporate consultancy firm.
This
revelation comes weeks before assembly polls in West Bengal. The footage shows
11 TMC leaders, including state ministers Subrata Mukherjee and Firhad Hakim,
being allegedly bribed to help a fictitious Chennai-based company get business
in the state.
CPI(M)
state head Surjya Kanta Mishra has said the polls should be postponed till the
Election Commission ensured the money was not used to influence people’s
verdict. “If it requires promulgation of President’s Rule, it should be
done,” he said. Adhir Ranjan Choudhury, head of the state’s Congress party,
said Bengal was being run by a pack of thieves. Bharatiya Janata Party head
Siddharth Nath Singh demanded Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s resignation.
Journalists
Mathew Samuel and Angel Abraham of Narada,
set up a fictitious company called Impex Consultancy in 2014 and approached
several leaders of the party “seeking favors” for this entity. The website
claimed to have incurred expenses of up to Rs 1 crore to bribe politicians and
middlemen. Most of the purported conversations happened over two years between
January 2014 and January 2016.
TMC MP
Derek O’Brien described the purported sting operation as a “smear campaign”. He
said: “We are completely transparent. (Chief Minister) Mamatadi’s credentials
are impeccable. The people of Bengal know. We are busy with elections now. So
whoever has concocted this smear campaign, please go ahead and concoct your
smear campaign or your doctored video.”
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