| Thursday , January 15 , 2015 |
Not today, sirs, Mukul tells CBI |
| Our Bureau |
 Mukul Roy at Nabanna on Wednesday. Telegraph picture Roy, who met Mamata Banerjee today and was apparently ticked off for sharing too much information with the media yesterday, sought the postponement of his questioning by 15 days. Two CBI officers in Delhi and Calcutta said Roy's lawyer, who made the request in a letter, had been told that it would be better if the politician turned up within seven days. The official reason cited in the letter was the byelections to a Lok Sabha seat and an Assembly seat in February. "I had confirmed to the CBI while I was in Delhi that I would appear before it. But at the time, the bypolls had not been announced. Since I am a key functionary of the party and would be preoccupied with the byelection, I have sought 15 days' time from the CBI. I will 100 per cent cooperate with the CBI in its investigation," PTI quoted Roy as saying tonight. The February 13 bypolls to the North 24-Parganas' Bongaon Lok Sabha seat and Nadia's Krishnaganj Assembly seat were announced yesterday afternoon. It is not clear why Roy and the Trinamul leadership concluded that he would not be able to devote attention to the elections if he was questioned by the CBI on Thursday. The last date for filing nominations is January 27 - as many as 12 days from the date on which Roy, who is a Trinamul all-India general secretary and an MP, was originally slated to appear before the CBI. Some other Trinamul leaders who had gone into the CBI office for questioning have not been able to return home till now because they were arrested. Trinamul leaders would not say whether the same fear prompted the leadership to suddenly realise that two bypolls cannot be fought without Roy's counsel. Roy had a decisive role of plotting poll tactics and running the organisation machinery but he has not been active politically in recent months, prompting many to conclude that his wings were clipped by Mamata. The eleventh-hour request for more time to appear before the CBI has set tongues wagging. Some politicians read it in conjunction with a speech by Mamata a few hours earlier in the day where she virtually launched the campaign for polls to nearly 100 civic bodies. "There seems to be some method.... Maybe there is a bigger gameplan behind Mukulda's decision of not going to the CBI office tomorrow," said a Trinamul leader who referred to "some surprises" but declined to speculate further. Roy, who has been in New Delhi for the past few days, had indicated yesterday that he would appear before the CBI on Thursday. The change of mind appears to have set in after he landed in Calcutta this afternoon and went to Nabanna for a closed-door meeting with Mamata. "Didi told him to seek an extension," said a Trinamul source. Party insiders said Mamata today gave Roy a dressing-down during the 35-minute meeting. "Didi is extremely annoyed with Mukulda for talking about a meeting with Sudipta Sen in Dello (in north Bengal's Kalimpong).... His admission gave legitimacy to the claim being made by people like Kunal Ghosh that she had met Sen in Dello," said a source. Roy's virtual confirmation is particularly damaging for Mamata because the chief minister had claimed that she became aware of Saradha only when the default crisis spilled out in April 2013. The problem is the alleged Dello meeting took place on March 1, 2012 - more than a year before Mamata's claim. It is also the year in which Saradha rubbed shoulders with Trinamul leaders and scooped up money from depositors who were taken in by the company's projected association with the leadership of the party governing the state. Among the questions that the central probe agency is likely to ask Roy is the alleged meeting with Sen in Kalimpong. Roy told reporters in New Delhi yesterday: "I met him twice. Once was for a meeting on the publications from the Saradha stable and the second time in north Bengal." Trinamul Rajya Sabha MP Ghosh, now in custody, had gone public on the Dello meeting and handed over documents that sought to support his claim that instructions were given to the tourism department to ensure that Saradha bagged contracts for some joint venture projects to promote tourism in north Bengal. One strategy of Saradha to convince investors was to create an impression that its deposit schemes were backed by assets such as tourism projects. But days after Saradha went bust in April 2013, Mamata had said at Writers' Buildings: "I came to know about the Saradha company only after watching the employees of their channel cry during a programme on Poila Baisakh. I asked Mukul why they are crying. Tar agey kichhu jantam i na (Didn't know anything before that)." Although Roy's "loyalty" towards Mamata has never been questioned, this is not the first time his comment before the media has caused embarrassment to the party boss. Last September, Roy had distanced himself from a deal between Saradha Tours and Travels and a railway subsidiary when Mamata was railway minister. " Amaar kichhu jana nei, karan chukti gulo jokhon hoy, ami tokhon dayitye nei, tar agei hoyechhe (I don't know anything about it because the deals were struck before I took charge)," Roy had said after details of the deal came to the CBI's notice. Soon after Roy left Nabanna this afternoon, word spread that he had offered to step down from party posts to avoid any collateral damage for Trinamul when he appeared before the CBI. But Trinamul secretary-general Partha Chatterjee said: "He will remain the all-India general secretary and Rajya Sabha MP. We are not going to remove someone because he has been summoned." |