Kolkata: Echoing Trinamool Congress, Congress on Wednesday said the arrests of TMC leaders were aimed at breaking the opposition unity on the issue of demonetisation and raised concern about the "timing" of the CBI actions.
"We are questioning the timing of the arrests. For more than a year the CBI was silent, but all of a sudden it has become active when the opposition is getting united on the issue of demonetisation. This is an attempt to break the unity of the opposition on the issue of demonetisation," Congress general secretary C P Joshi told reporters here.
The "timing of the arrests" has raised a question mark over the impartiality of the probe, he remarked.
Congress had on Tuesday alleged TMC Parliamentary Party leader in Lok Sabha Sudip Bandyopadhyay's arrest by the CBI was "vendetta unleashed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on his detractors" and wondered if it was in reaction to the "opposition unity".
Notably, the Supreme Court had ordered the CBI probe into the chit fund scam based on an appeal by senior Congress leader Abdul Mannan.
When asked about it, Joshi said, "The matter is sub judice, so it won't be right to comment on the matter."
The state Congress leadership, under the instruction of party high command, took a U-turn and said presently demonetisation was a much bigger issue than chit fund scam.
"The demonetisation is a issue of 125 crore people of India. All opposition parties have united on this issue. But, the chit fund is an issue of two crore people. So you need to prioritise," Mannan told reporters.
State Congress sources said the party high command has clearly instructed the state leadership not to rub TMC in a wrong way, as both parties were fighting unitedly at the Centre on the issue of demonetisation.
State Congress president Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury, when asked about the attack on state BJP office by TMC activists, said, "I condemn it. Political party offices should not be a target of any attack.
