KOLKATA/KRISHNANAGAR:
CBI
raided on Saturday Trinamool's
Krishnanagar
Lok Sabha candidate
Mahua Moitra
's parents' apartment in south Kolkata, her election office, her rented accommodation in Karimpur, and a party office used by her in Krishnanagar in connection with the
cash-for-query allegations
, prompting
Trinamool
to defend her strongly and claim that the pre-election move, along with the arrest of Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal, displayed BJP's "growing desperation".
Acting on the directions of Lokpal, an anti-corruption ombudsman, CBI had filed an FIR against Moitra on Thursday.
While Moitra did not comment on the raids, party leader Kunal Ghosh said, "Mahua was labelled guilty without being given a chance to defend herself. When asked to depose before the joint parliamentary committee, Mahua faced obscene insinuations and innuendoes by BJP MPs. This was a conspiracy to throw her out of Parliament. This conspiracy screenplay has a new actor today - CBI."
When a CBI team arrived at the ninth-floor Ratnabali apartments flat on 7A Judges Court Road at 7am, Moitra's parents - DL Moitra, an industrialist, and Manju - were not home. Manju was contacted by the caretaker and soon arrived with the keys. The CBI team left at 1.45pm without making any seizures, sources said.
Another CBI team, comprising five officers and 10 central force jawans, arrived at Moitra's election office at Krishnanagar High Street at 2.50pm. After a two-hour search here, the team headed to a TMC party office (also used for elections) barely 100 metres away. After spending an hour there, the CBI team left around 6pm. The Krishnanagar raids prompted several TMC supporters to gather around the party office. At 9.10pm, CBI officers entered Moitra's rented accommodation in Karimpur. Till reports last came in, the team was still at her home.
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