TMC national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee on Friday posted on Twitter purported images of Union minister Prahlad Joshi with an alleged "coal mafia", and accused the ED and CBI of turning a blind eye to the issue. He claimed that the probe agencies were "conveniently ignoring the mafia-minister nexus".
The BJP, however, asserted that the allegations leveled were "baseless". PTI could not independently verify the authenticity of the two pictures attached with the tweet.
"I wonder what minister @JoshiPrahlad is doing with tainted coal mafia, Joydeb Khan! Is he discussing ways of filing @BJP4India's pockets or congratulating him on siphoning the Nation's resources? The @dir_ed and the CBI have conveniently ignored this Mafia-Minister nexus," Banerjee tweeted.
State minister Babul Supriyo also shared the tweet.
At a press meet, party state spokesperson Kunal Ghosh said, "The CBI and ED should immediately bring under the ambit of investigation this issue. How come a history-sheeter got to click a picture with a BJP heavyweight? What is Khan's equation with the BJP?"
He also pointed out that TMC leaders were being "targeted" in connection with a lottery contest "without any iota of evidence", but central agencies look the other way when it came to BJP leaders.
Jailed TMC leader Anubrata Mondal was recently questioned by the CBI in connection with a lottery prize had allegedly won in Birbhum district.
Responding to Banerjee's allegation, senior BJP leader Rahul Sinha said investigations into coal smuggling were underway, and the "complicity of TMC leaders has already been established". The TMC was trying to malign a Union minister by making "baseless" allegations, he added.
(This story is published as part of the auto-generated syndicate wire feed. Apart from the headline, no editing has been done in the copy by ABP Live.)