A woman hurled her shoes at former West Bengal minister Partha Chatterjee when he was being taken to the ED office from ESI Hospital in Kolkata. However, the shoes thrown by the woman missed Chatterjee. The woman has been identified as Shubra Ghorui from Bengal's Amtala area, PTI reported.
The woman said she was angry at the former minister following the seizure of around Rs 50 crore in cash, along with jewellery, by the ED from two apartments of Partha Chatterjee's aide Arpita Mukherjee in the teacher recruitment scam.
"I had come to throw my shoe on him. He has taken money from poor people. I would have been happier if the shoe would have hit him on his head," ANI quoted her as saying.
Speaking to reporters, the woman said, "I cannot think that he has built apartment after apartment, and accumulated so much cash when people are roaming on the roads without any job. After cheating people he is travelling in AC cars. He must be dragged with a rope…I will walk back home barefoot."
"It is not only my anger but that of lakhs and lakhs of people of West Bengal," Ghorui further said.
Partha Chatterjee, who was sacked as minister and suspended from TMC last week, was then whisked away in a vehicle from the hospital premises by ED personnel.
Taking a swipe at the ruling TMC in Bengal over the incident, BJP's Amit Malviya said the woman was a "symbol of Mamata Banerjee's venal establishment".
"This woman, who hurled a slipper at Partha Chatterjee, symbol of Mamata Banerjee's venal establishment, and walked back barefoot is the symbol of Bengal’s resistance against TMC’s oppressive regime," Malviya tweeted.
Both Chatterjee and his aide Arpita Mukherjee were arrested by the ED on July 23 in connection with its probe into the multi-crore teacher recruitment scam.