Bengal CID summons BJP’s ex-MP Arjun Singh in 2020 case ahead of Naihati bypoll | Kolkata
KOLKATA: The Criminal Investigation Department (CID) of the West Bengal police has summoned Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) former Lok Sabha member Arjun Singh on November 12 in connection with a case relating to misappropriation and criminal breach of trust that was allegedly committed when he was a Trinamool Congress (TMC) legislator.
“I have been summoned to the CID office in Kolkata on November 12. This is clearly an effort to keep me away from the poll preparations (for the Naihati bypoll on November 13). It is public knowledge that police in Bengal are controlled by the ruling party,” Singh said on Tuesday.
Naihati is one of the seven assembly segments that constitute the Barrackpore Lok Sabha seat that Arjun Singh won in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. Singh is also managing the BJP’s campaign for the Naihati bypoll.
Leader of Opposition in the state assembly Suvendu Adhikari, who put out a copy of the CID summons on X on Monday, also questioned the timing of the summons and declared that they would approach the court for relief.
“We will certainly approach the Courts regarding such political move of a State Agency, but again such mistakes regarding time and date happen when someone is trying to ‘manufacture’ something while misusing authority,” Adhikari said in the post on X.
Asked about the allegations, a police officer said: “Singh was summoned more than a week ago as well but he did not appear saying he was busy campaigning for the bypoll at the Naihati assembly seat in North 24 Parganas.”
Singh was a four-time TMC legislator from Bhatpara in North 24 Parganas district before he joined the BJP and wrested the local Barrackpore Lok Sabha seat from TMC’s Dinesh Trivedi in 2019.
The first information report (FIR) was lodged at the Bhatpara police station on July 28, 2020, more than a year after Singh won the Barrackpore Lok Sabha election in 2019.
In August 2020, police raided Singh’s home in connection with the case which allegedly involves financial irregularities to the tune of ₹11 crore at Bhatpara municipality and a local cooperative bank.
Singh was the TMC chairman of Bhatpara municipality from 2010 to 2019. He also headed the bank’s board.
Singh, who was a BJP state vice-president, returned to TMC after 38 months in May 2022. But after the TMC did not field him from the Barrackpore seat in the 2024 general elections, he returned to the BJP and contested the elections. He, however, lost to his arch rival, TMC’s Partha Bhowmick, who resigned from Naihati assembly seat after winning Barrackpore.
Bypolls for five other assembly seats in Bengal will be held on November 13 because the incumbent MLAs were elected to the Lok Sabha. Only one of these assembly seats was held by BJP.
