Six Trinamul ministers on Wednesday said that several Opposition leaders from the Congress, CPM and the BJP had assets disproportionate to known sources of income and demanded a thorough probe into how their assets grew over the years.

Education minister Bratya Basu referred to a petition —filed before Calcutta High Court in 2017, which shot into prominence after the court ordered the petitioner to make the Enforcement Directorate a party to the case on Monday —and rolled out the names of a host of Opposition leaders, including Congress state president Adhir Chowdhury, CPM veterans Surjya Kanta Mishra, Kanti Ganguly and Asok Bhattacharya and BJP MP Khagen Murmu.

“It is true there are names of 19 Trinamul ministers and leaders in the petition but in another petition, there are names of several Opposition leaders. The first name on the list is that of Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury,” Basu said and went on to name at least seven CPM and Congress leaders.

The issue of 19 Trinamul heavyweights allegedly having assets disproportionate to their known sources of income came up in the high court on Monday when a group of lawyers drew the attention of the division bench headed by Chief Justice Prakash Shrivastava to a 2017 petition that has been pending before the court. The petition filed in 2017 by Biplab Roy Chowdhury, a subordinate court lawyer, sought an assessment of the properties of ruling Trinamul leaders, including MLAs, MPs and ministers. The PIL was waiting for disposal since then. The petitioner based his argument on affidavits filed by the 19 leaders during the 2011 polls and then in 2016.

In another petition filed in 2017 by Arijit Ganguly, names of 30 Congress, CPM and BJP leaders are mentioned and the petitioner wanted to know how their income had multiplied between 2011 and 2016.

Referring to the pending 2017 petition filed by Roy Chowdhury regarding Trinamul leaders, advocate Sabyasachi Chatterjee and others moved the Chief Justice’s court and urged it to take up the PIL for hearing on Monday. The lawyers argued that back in 2017 Roy Chowdhury had anticipated that some of the leaders of the ruling party were “cheating the public”. The court amalgamated both the petitions and is likely to hear the matter in September.

The Opposition was quick to pick up the petition to attack the ruling party that has been on the back foot ever since the arrest of former “heavyweight minister” Partha Chatterjee in the alleged SSC scam and the recovery of crores in cash and jewellery from his close aide Arpita Mukherjee.

The fact that the petition has added to the embarrassment for the ruling Trinamul was clear as the six leaders tried to turn the tables on the Opposition on the issue of “corruption” which has currently become the central topic in the political discourse in the state.

The ruling party leaders, in a first of its kind admission, said their names did figure in the petition but that was not the whole story.

Salim said he challenged Basu to substantiate the claims made against CPM leaders or else the party would move court against the minister.