Partha Chatterjee dialled Mamata 4 times after his arrest. She did not respond

West Bengal minister Partha Chatterjee had desperately tried to reach chief minister Mamata Banerjee and had called her at least four times after he was arrested by the Enforcement Directorate early on Saturday.

The TMC chief, however, didn’t receive the calls of her party’s state secretary general.

According to the arrest memo of the federal agency, Chatterjee was arrested at 1:55 am on Saturday after being questioned since Friday morning. He called the party chief at least four times between 2:32 am and 9:35 am.

“He called her but she didn’t take his call. Another opportunity was given but again she didn’t take the call,” says the arrest memo of the central agency.

Chatterjee called the chief minister for the first time at 2:32 am. The second call was made immediately after that at 2:33 am. He again called her after a gap of one hour at 3:37 am. The last call was made at about 9:35 am.

“I tried to call her (Mamata Banerjee). But I couldn’t reach her,” Chatterjee had told the media while being taken away from his south Kolkata residence by ED officials on Saturday at about 10:30 am.

The arrest memo, signed by an officer of assistant director rank of the probe agency, also mentions that Chatterjee refused to receive the arrest memo.

“I don’t know what the ED or Chatterjee has said. But how can he make calls? During such raids, the first thing they (officials of central agencies) do is that they seize mobile phones so that no calls can be made. I have faced it,” said Firhad Hakim, state minister who was earlier arrested by the CBI in connection with the Narada sting operation case in May 2021.

The ED told the Calcutta high court on Sunday that during the raid at Chatterjee’s house and during the interrogation which lasted for 27 hours, ‘sufficient evidence’ was found in support of his involvement in the teacher recruitment scam. ‘Ample evidence’ was also collected which suggests that Arpita Mukherjee was a close aide of Chatterjee.

Mukherjee is a model and close associate of Chatterjee, from whose flat more than ₹21 crore cash, gold and USD worth several lakh rupees were seized by the ED on Saturday. She has been arrested too.

“This (mention of the calls made by Chatterjee to the chief minister in the arrest memo) was unnecessary and unwarranted. The person whom Chatterjee tried to call has nothing to do with this. Why the ED has mentioned all these in the arrest memo, only they can justify,” said Kunal Ghosh, TMC spokesperson.

“This is a legal process. I don’t think it should be mixed with politics,” said Samik Bhattacharya, BJP spokesperson.