Municipality recruitment case: 'Will go to CBI office on scheduled day if not caught in emergency', says Sujit Bose

West Bengal Fire Services Minister Sujit Bose on Thursday said that he will face the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) in connection with the municipality recruitment case on the scheduled date unless he is caught in any disaster-related emergency.

“I am yet to get the official communication from CBI in the matter. If I receive that, I will surely go to the CBI office and face their questioning on the scheduled day unless I am caught in any disaster-related emergency in the state as the state fire services minister,” Bose told the media hours after the news surfaced that CBI had summoned him for questioning on this count.

CBI has asked Bose to be present at the agency’s Nizam Palace office in central Kolkata by 11 A.M. on August 31 for questioning in the case. He has been summoned by the CBI officials to question him on his role in the recruitment process in Bidhannagar Municipal Corporation (BMC) as an erstwhile deputy chairman of Dum Dum (South) municipality.

Bose, also the chief of a community Durga Puja in northern outskirts of Kolkata, is the first member of the West Bengal cabinet to be summoned by CBI in connection with the municipalities’ recruitment case.

He started his political journey with Trinamool Congress’s arch political rival CPI(M) as the right-hand man of maverick Indian Marxist and former minister in the previous Left Front regime Late Subhash Chakraborty.

However, later, he distanced himself from the CPI(M) especially after the demise of Chakraborty in 2009 and joined Trinamool Congress. Very soon he became an extremely close confidant of the Trinamool Congress supremo and the current Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee.