Mamata Banerjee-led TMC runs extortion racket from businessmen, tolabazi: BJP MP

New Delhi [India], October 30 (ANI): BJP General Secretary of West Bengal Locket Chatterjee on Friday levelled a serious allegation against West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee-led Trinamool Congress in a tweet in which she attached a mail from a Kolkata-based company alleging that a TMC MLA and MP were involved in an extortion racket.
Alleging that there is a widespread act of organised extortion in the state, Chatterjee told ANI that she has found some 'evidence' in the context of the incident.
"The business of tolabaazi is going on continuously in the state," she said.
'Tolabaazi', which is often used against Trinamool Congress (TMC) in the state, is roughly understood as an act of organised extortion, in local parlance.
"When a businessman undertakes a project in Bengal, then the TMC syndicate in return demands their share of the money. This is not only the matter of my area Hooghly but the whole of Bengal," Chatterjee added.
Taking to Twitter, she shared a snippet of the mail allegedly sent by the members of the Kolkata-based Purti Group who claim that their three employees were kidnapped. Quoting the same incident in a tweet, she said, "A glaring example of how a businessman became a victim of extortion. His employees got kidnapped! It shows how Mamata Banerjee is running the extortion industry in West Bengal with the help of her MLAs and party cadres. The prime reason why Bengal reeks of backwardness!"
Ahead of the civic body polls in Tripura and Assembly elections in Goa that the TMC plans to contest, Chatterjee asked, "Will Mamta Banerjee run the same business of extortion and loot in Goa and Tripura?"
"This has been going on in Bengal for the last 10 years and is still going on. No industry will come here. You (Mamata Banerjee) are lying that industries are coming here. This is the condition of industries here," said Chatterjee.
On the allegations of the kidnapping incident, she said that she has not yet spoken to the members of the firm but added, "They have written in the mail that they have asked for 50,000 T-shirts which amounts to Rs 35 lakhs. Why would they give?" (ANI)