New Delhi: Trinamool Congress leader and West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee's nephew Abhishek Banerjee has once again attacked the Bharatiya Janata Party over the Enforcement Directorate summon.


"Anyone who fights against BJP is harassed. This case has arisen out of Kolkata, I have been summoned to Delhi. I have been asked questions non-stop for the last 8 hours. From day one, I have been asking to bring evidence, if any, against me into the public domain," TMC's Abhishek Banerjee said, after appearing before ED officials in the agency's Jam Nagar house office in Delhi on Monday.


"If BJP thinks it can frighten TMC by doing all this, if they think TMC will accept defeat like Congress and other parties, we will fight more vigorously. We'll go to every state where they've killed democracy," he added, as quoted by news agency ANI.



The Diamond Harbour MP went on to challenge the saffron party again as he said: "BJP's tyranny will be defeated. Let BJP put all its might, vigour, threat and resources, mind my words, their resources are going to fall flat. TMC will defeat BJP in next polls".


"We'll not bow before these autocrats, cowards who can't defeat us politically. Take my words, we have fire in our belly, come what may we'll defeat them in 2024. 25 BJP MLAs are in line but we're not taking them in. TMC will go to every BJP-ruled state," Abhishek Banerjee added.


"If anyone wants to stop TMC by coercion, I challenge them -- you can use CBI, ED, Income Tax and any other agency you want, but we will not bow down. We are unstoppable," he stated.


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Earlier, Abhishek Banerjee had declared that he is ready to hang himself publicly if the corruption allegation against him is proved. "I reiterate what I had said in November at public meetings that if any central agency can prove my involvement in any illegal transaction of even 10 paise, there will be no need to hold any CBI or ED probe, I will walk up the podium and get myself hanged publicly," he said on Sunday, as quoted PTI.


Coal Scam Case & ED's Summon


ED had summoned the TMC national general secretary in connection with the coal scam case.


ED had filed the case under criminal sections of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) after studying a November 2020 FIR of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) that alleged a multi-crore coal pilferage scam related to the Eastern Coalfields Ltd mines in the state's Kunustoria and Kajora areas in and around Asansol.


Abhishek Banerjee is understood to have been questioned about his links to the other accused involved in the case and in the context of two companies allegedly linked to his family in which some purported illegal transactions were done, PTI cited officials as informing.


The central agency had claimed that the TMC leader was a beneficiary of funds obtained from this illegal trade, PTI reported.


While his wife Rujira was also summoned by the agency in this case on September 1, she did not appear citing the prevailing Coronavirus situation and requested the agency to instead question her in Kolkata.


The ED has arrested two people in this case till now.