CPI(M) promoted chit funds during Left Front rule, alleges Trinamool Congress

NEW DELHI: Trinamool Congress accused CPI(M) of having promote chit funds in West Bengal during the erstwhile Left Front rule and claimed that the Mamata Banerjee government was taking firm action against such ponzi firms to safeguard the interests of the people.

"100 per cent of irregular chit fund companies came into existence during the Left Front rule of 34 years. No new ponzi company has come into existence during our ongoing tenure led by Mamata Banerjee.

"In fact, it is the Chief Minister who is taking firm action as she herself got the Saradha company chief arrested from Jammu and Kashmir within 72 hours of the scam being exposed," Trinamool Congress parliamentary party chief Sudip Bandopadhyay told PTI here.

His statement came after the issue was raised by the Left parties today when their MPs staged a protest sit-in inside the Parliament House complex demanding a CBI probe into the ponzi scam in the state and action against those named by arrested Trinamool MP Kunal Ghosh.

Bandopadhyay also alleged that CPI(M) had taken "financial support from all well-established chit fund companies during its rule and made the poorest of the poor totally helpless and completely impoverished."

Claiming that the state government was acting in a "completely transparent manner" in this regard, he said it has set up a commission, headed by a former chief justice Shyamal Kumar Sen, to assess the impact of the Saradha scam and compensate the poor depositors who had been affected.

"The state government is taking all necessary legal steps in this regard," Bandopadhyay added.