A police complaint alleging corruption has been lodged against the officer on special duty (OSD) to Calcutta’s mayor Firhad Hakim by the office of Trinamool Congress national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee.
The complaint with Shakespeare Sarani police station alleges that Kalicharan Banerjee was collecting money using the name of chief minister Mamata Banerjee’s nephew, police sources said.
The letter from Abhishek’s Camac Street office said Kalicharan had collected large sums from different people, including businessmen, claiming proximity with the Trinamool second-in-command and promising to get their work done, the police sources said.
It also reportedly states several others could be associated with Kalicharan in this alleged crime and urges the police to investigate it considering it a formal complaint.
A copy of the letter has been sent to the deputy police commissioner of the south division of Kolkata Police.
The sources said the letter was sent by a functionary in Abhishek’s office who keeps an eye on the implementation of the state government’s welfare schemes like Laxmir Bhandar and Swasthya Sathi.
Mayor Hakim pleaded ignorance about the letter and said he was unaware of a complaint being lodged with the police.
“I had no idea about this letter. I came to know about it now from the media,” Hakim told reporters.
“If there are allegations, I could have been informed. I would have initiated an inquiry. But I have never heard about these allegations before,” he said.
Sources in the police said the letter was with the officer in charge of the Shakes-
peare police station and till late Friday, no FIR had been drawn up based on the complaint.
“There will be something known as a preliminary inquiry into the allegations that have been levelled and, based on the findings, an FIR would be drawn up,” a senior police officer said.
“It is not binding on the police to immediately draw up an FIR,” the officer said.
Senior officers at the police headquarters in Lalbazar were unavailable for an official reaction on the letter from Abhishek’s office.
The allegation about someone using Abhishek’s name to collect funds comes a month after officers from the same Shakespeare Sarani police station arrested Trinamool leader Kaushik Sarkar from New Town.
Sarkar was arrested for allegedly collecting crores using a fake letterhead bearing Abhiskeh Banerjee’s name. He would allegedly promise recommendations on the letterhead and collect money.
As the OSD to Hakim, Kalicharan has been looking after all the work at the mayor’s office since 2019, besides being a senior official of the Kolkata Municipal Corporation’s social welfare department.
A former deputy superintendent of police, Kalicharan changed jobs and became a revenue officer with the state government’s land and land reforms department before finally joining the civic body as an assistant manager in the non-engineering cadre.
Several KMC senior officials said Kalicharan has been known to be efficient with his tasks since he joined the municipal services. His dedication and swift decision-making made him a trusted aide to the mayor, they said.
Kalicharan would be seen at almost all the talk-to-mayor programmes where residents would call up Hakim to air their grievances and seek redress.
Suvendu Adhikari, the Leader of the Opposition from the BJP, alleged Kalicharan owns seven flats and said his properties were more in number compared to Partha Chatterjee, the arrested former education minister of Bengal.
