West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee criticized the Union government on Wednesday for conducting daylong raids on various municipalities in the state as part of an alleged recruitment scam investigation. Speaking at a program to distribute compensation checks to families of those who died in a train accident, Banerjee questioned whether central agencies would now raid people’s washrooms. The Municipal Affairs Minister and Kolkata Mayor Firhad Hakim also criticized the enhanced central agency activities as “narrow politics.”
The Enforcement Directorate (ED) is conducting a parallel probe into the multi-crore municipalities recruitment case and has estimated the total money collected in the alleged scam to be around Rs 200 crore. The ED sources revealed that the money was collected while making appointments for various posts in different municipalities, such as cleaners, ambulance drivers, peons, and pump operators. Each job was sold for amounts ranging from Rs 4,00,000 to Rs 7,00,000. Fourteen municipalities are currently under the scanner of the probe agencies for alleged irregularities in the recruitment of clerks and workers against payment of money.
