Narada sting operation: TMC leaders will emerge unscatched, says Firad Hakim

KOLKATA: Senior TMC leader and West Bengal minister for transport and housing Firhad Hakim on Monday expressed confidence that he and his party colleagues would emerge unscathed from the investigation being conducted by the CBI into the Narada sting operation.

He welcomed Governor Jagdeep Dhankhar's decision to sanction prosecution against him and other senior leaders of the TMC, including Madan Mitra and Subrata Mukherjee.

Sovan Chatterjee, who had quit the TMC and joined the BJP only to sever ties with both the parties later, has also come under the central agency's lens in the case.

"I personally do not mind the prosecution as I have full faith in the judiciary. I am sure we will all get a clean chit. The BJP had been unnecessarily trying to malign my image and career," Hakim said.

"It is good that the case was being moved to the court. I will say what I have to in court, and justice will be served," he added.

Hakim and Mukherjee are among the 43 TMC leaders who were sworn-in as ministers in Mamata Banerjee Cabinet on Monday at Raj Bhavan.

The Narada sting tapes, made public before the 2016 assembly elections in Bengal, were claimed to have been shot in 2014, and people resembling TMC ministers, MPs and MLAs were allegedly seen in the video receiving money from representatives of a fictitious company in lieu of promised favours.

Dhankhar, on a request by the CBI, has sanctioned the prosecution all four leaders.

They were part of the Mamata Banerjee cabinet when the tapes were allegedly made by Mathew Samuel of Narada News portal in 2014.

The Calcutta High Court had ordered a CBI probe into the sting operation in March 2017.