All four TMC leaders arrested in connection with the Narada case were given bail by a special CBI court on Monday evening (May 17).
Unique CBI court judge Anupam Mukherjee granted relief to the four – ministers Subrata Mukherjee and Firhad Hakim, MLA Madan Mitra, and former minister Sovan Chatterjee – during a simulated hearing at Bankshall Court in Kolkata.
Following their detention in the morning from their houses, the four were taken to the CBI office in Nizam Palace.
Mamata Banerjee, the Chief Minister of West Bengal, held a protest outside the CBI office earlier this week, demanding the release of the four party leaders.
Later, she left Nizam Palace, while her nephew and party chief, Abhishek Banerjee, urged party supporters to follow the law and not violate the lockdown rules.
Massive demonstrations erupted outside the probe agency’s office following the detention of four leaders. Though TMC supporters chanted slogans and threw stones at central forces deployed outside, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee stormed into the CBI office and requested that she and her leaders be arrested.
TMC spokesman Kunal Ghosh responded to the arrests by claiming that the CBI move was a vengeful act and a result of the BJP’s defeat in the West Bengal assembly polls. “After making an all-out effort to win, the BJP is also unable to admit defeat in the polls… This is a heinous crime.
TMC supporters staged protests around the country, defying lockout restrictions.
Protesting the arrests, TMC supporters chanted slogans against the BJP-led NDA government and threw stones and bricks at security forces outside Nizam Palace, which houses the CBI office.
In other areas of the province, including Hooghly, North 24 Parganas, and South 24 Parganas districts, agitators burned tyres and blocked roads.
Minutes after being granted bail in the Narada sting case, TMC leader and Bengal minister Firhad Hakim termed the day’s events a result of BJP’s vendetta politics.
The TMC leader claimed that the BJP indulged in vendetta politics as it could not accept its loss in the recently concluded assembly elections.
“Today was not only a day to harass and do vendetta against me and my colleagues but also it was BJP unleashing its vengeance on the people of Bengal. Their Sore Loss and anger on people of Bengal for voting TMC with landslide margins,” Firhad Hakim said.
