In the wake of a fraud complaint lodged against the OSD of Kolkata Mayor Firhad Hakim by an aide of TMC MP Abhishek Banerjee, former IAS officer Jawhar Sircar, who recently quit the TMC, on Saturday urged the party to “cleanse itself”. In a post on X, Sircar, who was sent to Rajya Sabha by the TMC, wrote: “When I talk of corruption — the TMC doesn’t like it. Now, TMC’s second topmost leader MP Abhishek Banerjee accuses TMC bigwig Firhad Hakim's aide of misusing name and other irregularities! Mayor defends the aide. Please cleanse the party.” In the complaint lodged at Shakespeare Sarani Police Station in Kolkata, Kalicharan Banerjee, the Officer on Special Duty (OSD) of Hakim, has been accused of financially duping people by claiming to be “close” to the TMC national general secretary. Hakim, who is also a minister in the Mamata Banerjee Cabinet, said: “I have never heard of anything like this before. If there is any complaint, then they could have given it to me. I would have enquired. I don't know anything about this.” On September 8, Sircar resigned as a TMC Rajya Sabha member, and wrote a letter to Mamata Banerjee in which he called her government’s handling of the protest over the RG Kar rape-murder as “faulty”. In a letter to Banerjee, which he posted on X, Sircar also flagged the issue of corruption and the “increasing strong-arm tactics of a section of leaders” in the Trinamool Congress.
