Rose Valley scam: Another headache in the making for TMC

The Trinamool Congress (TMC), which is recovering following allegations of its members being involved in the Saradha scam, are now facing the Rose Valley heat. A major raid at the residence of Tapas Pal, a TMC MP in connection with the Rose Valley scam is the beginning of another major investigation into ponzi schemes and the alleged role of politicians.

The CBI carried out raids in several offices of Rose Valley at West Bengal, Tripura, Assam, Odisha, Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra, Bihar and Uttar Pradesh. The raids were the highest in West Bengal and 27 offices of Rose Valley were raided by the CBI.

Pal will be called in for questioning:

A raid at the residence of Tapas Pal led to the seizure of documents and bank statements which the three member CBI team says is vital for the case. An officer in the CBI informed that they are going through the documents and would soon call the MP in for questioning.

A questionnaire for Pal to answer has also been prepared the CBI official informed. The CBI is however keen to find out the financial transactions made between Pal, his wife and the Rose Valley group.

While the CBI would seek a detailed explanation on the money transactions, Pal has already claimed that these were genuine transactions. He says that his wife was part of a programme on a television channel being run by the Rose Valley group and the transactions were in relation to the payment for the same.

The Rose Valley scam:

Rose Valley group was one of the many companies that were named by the corporate affairs ministry involved in ponzi scams. Following an investigation, the SEBI had directed Rose Valley to stop collecting any more funds and also return money to its depositors.

During the probe it had been found that Rose Valley had raised Rs 15000 crore. This had led to a hue and cry among 30 lakh depositors who had invested in the group.

The Deolo meeting with Mamata Banerjee again:

Recently the chairman of the Rose Valley, Gautham Kundu had said that he had met with West Bengal Chief Minister, Mamata Banerjee at Deolo. To a question posed to him whether he had met with the CM, he said he had and found nothing wrong in it.

Interestingly a similar meeting had been held with Saradha kingpin, Sudipta Sen as well in Deolo. It was Kunal Ghosh who first spoke about the meeting only to be denied by the TMC leadership. However senior leader Mukul Roy confirmed that meeting and the relationship between him and Mamata have never been the same ever since.

Investigators feel that the modus operandi in both the cases appear to be the same. Both were running television channels and they wanted to impress the leadership by putting up favourable content. During the probe several accused have said that television channels were picked up to project Mamata as the next PM. The accused persons felt that by doing so they could remain in the good books of the CM which would help them further their scam.