ABHISHEK BANERJEE GETS CID SUMMONS, TMC IN DEEP CRISIS

The Trinamool Congress, already reeling from the most catastrophic electoral defeat in its history, found itself confronted on Saturday with a fresh legal and organisational crisis.

- SUPROTIM MUKHERJEE

The state’s Criminal Investigation Department issued a summons to TMC national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee, asking him to appear before investigators on Monday, June 1, in connection with an alleged forgery of legislators’ signatures—a development that threatens to further destabilise a party that is visibly fracturing at every level.

The CID summon relates to an ongoing investigation into allegations that signatures of several TMC MLAs were forged on a letter connected to the nomination of a Leader of Opposition in the West Bengal Assembly, which was submitted to the Assembly Speaker.

The controversy centres on a letter that reportedly nominated senior TMC leader Sobhandeb Chattopadhyay as the Leader of Opposition in the Assembly, with investigators examining claims that signatures of some legislators were affixed on the document without their consent. The CID is seeking to determine how the letter was prepared, approved and submitted. It has also visited some MLAs in connection with the probe, while party spokesperson and MLA Kunal Ghosh was also served a notice on Saturday.

The timing of the summons could hardly be more fraught.

It arrives barely three weeks after the BJP secured a historic 208 seats in the Bengal.

Assembly election, ending Mamata Banerjee's 15-year rule in West The TMC, which had governed Bengal since 2011, was reduced to a rump of 80 seats, a drubbing that has since set off a chain reaction of resignations, recriminations and mass defections that party leaders are struggling to contain.

Abhishek Banerjee, the Diamond Harbour MP who is the number two in the TMC hierarchy and the principal architect of the party's electoral strategy, received the CID notice with characteristic combativeness.