Kolkata, Sep 18 (IANS) Controversial Trinamool Congress legislator, Humayun Kabir, on Thursday afternoon, arrived at the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) Special Court in Kolkata, to meet fellow party MLA Jiban Krishna Saha, who was arrested last month by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) because of his involvement in the cash-for-school job case in West Bengal.
While Kabir is the Trinamool Congress Legislator from Bhagalpur Assembly constituency in Murshidabad district of West Bengal, Saha is the party’s MLA from Burwan Assembly constituency in the same district.
Saha, who is in judicial custody now, arrived at the special PMLA court in Kolkata, on Thursday afternoon, to appear for a hearing on his bail petition. Before the hearing in the matter started, Kabir arrived at the same court and interacted with Saha.
Kabir also interacted with Saha’s wife and son, who were also present at the court. The development took many by surprise, since Kabir’s decision to meet Saha comes at a time when the Trinamool Congress leadership had already started distancing itself from Saha and claiming that the party would not take responsibility for the latter’s alleged involvement in school-job irregularities.
When questioned on the matter, Kabir clearly said that coming to the special court to meet his fellow party legislator from the same district was his personal decision, and the party was in no way involved in it.
“No one could be happy or fine when behind bars. So I came to enquire about his health condition and to know whether he was facing any special difficulty. I can’t say who else would come to meet him. But I came since I felt that I should meet Saha once,” Kabir said.
Political observers say that through his actions and statements, Kabir had sent a subtle message to the Trinamool Congress leadership that he did not like the idea of the party leadership distancing itself from Saha when the latter was going through tough times.
Previously, Kabir had been censured by the Trinamool Congress leadership a number of times and even slapped with show-cause notices for making public statements that caused embarrassment to the party. However, despite being reprimanded, Kabir repeated his actions and statements.
Saha was previously arrested by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), which is conducting a parallel probe in the school-job case. However, he got bail in the CBI-registered case later. Last month, he was arrested by the ED officials.
–IANS
src/rad