Somen questions CM’s honesty, to quit as MP

Statesman News Service  
Kolkata, 31 October
The rebel Trinamul Congress MP Somen Mitra today said he would soon quit the party, but before that he would resign as Trinamul MP "as political honesty demands.”
“The same yardstick demands chief minister Mamata Banerjee order a CBI inquiry into the Saradha chit fund scam,” he said.  
Mr Mitra made the remarks in response to reporters’ query whether he would leave the Trinamul. There has been speculation that he along with his MLA wife, Shikha Mitra, a vociferous critic of Trinamul chief Mamata Banerjee, will quit the Trinamul in the middle of next month and return to the Congress fold. Mrs Mitra has been suspended by the party for spewing venom against the leadership.  The Mitra couple, and suspended Trinamul MP Kunal Ghosh, have for some time been pressing for handing over to the CBI the investigation into the Saradha chit fund scam and interrogation of those named by the Saradha chief Sudipto Sen in his letter to the CBI a few days before he was arrested. 
However, for the first time since he joined the party, Mr Mitra today questioned the honesty of Miss Banerjee. "If the chief minister is that honest, why is she not handing over the multi-crore Saradha scam case to the CBI,” he asked after inaugurating a Kali puja in central Kolkata.
It was Mr Mitra who had accompanied Mr Ghosh to Delhi when the latter recently met Mr Ahmed Patel, triggering speculation that the two would be joining the Congress. 

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