JOIN USAfter BJP leader Mukul Roy, the opposition CPI(M) in West Bengal has turned its heat against the ruling Trinamool Congress on the controversy surrounding the ownership of Biswa Bangla logo.
Left Front legislative party leader and CPI(M) MLA Sujan Chakraborty on Wednesday said he has already initiated a legal process in Calcutta High Court demanding that a Special Investigation Team (SIT) probe be conducted under the supervision of the court on the ownership issue of the logo designed by Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and extensively used by all state government departments.
During a rally last week, Mukul Roy, the once second-in-command in Trinamool Congress and now a BJP leader, had claimed that the Biswa Bangla logo is registered under the name of Abhishek Banerjee, a Lok Sabha MP and Mamata Banerjee's nephew.
Roy has also claimed that Abhishek had approached the trademark registration authorities and had registered the Trinamool Congress' party electoral symbol - two flowers sticking out of grass - as his own. Roy went on to allege that Mamata's nephew has also secured the registration of the Jago Bangla trademark, under which Trinamool Congress publishes its mouthpiece.
"Nearly a year back it was the Left, which had first raised the issue through a series of write-ups in the CPI(M) Bengali mouthpiece Ganashakti.
"BJP has merely followed it up. Crores of rupees are being spent to popularise this Biswa Bangla logo. But, one has to understand that it is taxpayer's money. Where are records which state the quantum of profit or loss by using this logo? Who is the paying authority? If the logo is indeed registered under the name of the chief minister's nephew, then why two senior bureaucrats of the state tried to defend him and other government officials never raised any question? And finally, if Abhishek did not have anything to do with all this, then why did he try to register the logo in his name and make a windfall? We want answers and a court-monitored thorough investigation is the only way to bring things before the people," Chakraborty said.
The CPI(M) leader also questioned Mamata Banerjee's "studied silence" on the issue.
Left Front chairman and CPI(M) Politburo member Biman Bose has also sought a detailed probe into the matter saying, conflicting reports on the issue has created confusion among people. The question of the state's constitutional propriety is also attached to this, he said.