Heavyweight Trinamool Congress (TMC) leader, Anubrata Mondal has now come under the scanner of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) over winning Rs 1 crore in a lottery.
On Saturday (November 5), he was interrogated by the central agency for about 1.5 hours at a special prison in Asansol. Mondal was quizzed about a ₹1 crore lottery that he won in January this year and the manner in which the funds were utilised.
A CBI officer informed, “We went to the prison to question Mr Anubrata about the lottery he won. We are tallying his responses with the statement given by the lottery ticket seller with whom we spoke on Friday (November 4).”
The #CBI probing the lottery angle in the multi- crore cattle smuggling scam in #WestBengal, has been intrigued by frequent lottery awards won by Trinamool Congress’s Birbhum district president #AnubrataMondal and his daughter #SukanyaMondal during a particular time period. pic.twitter.com/6ViOAdvCV7
— IANS (@ians_india) November 8, 2022
According to the central agency, Mondal might have laundered black money, procured through cattle smuggling activities, via lottery draws. The ticket seller, identified as Munna Sheikh, denied selling lottery tickets to the TMC leader.
It is alleged that Mondal purchased the lottery ticket, which fetched him ₹1 crore, through his bodyguard. As per a report in Hindustan Times Bangla, the CBI has now found information about 3 additional lottery ticket winnings by the Mondol family.
Funds received from two lottery winnings, totalling ₹51 lakhs, were transferred to the bank account of Anubrata Mondol’s daughter Sukanya Mondol. Similarly, ₹10 lakhs won from the lottery was transferred to the TMC leader’s account in 2019.
The CBI had also quizzed Munna Sheikh, the ticket seller from Birbhum, which fetched Anubrata ₹1 crore. He claimed no memory of selling tickets to the TMC leader. Sheikh said that he purchased the tickets in bulk from the ‘Rahul Lottery Agency’, which was indirectly issued by the Nagaland State Lottery.
1.2 Lottery has become an avenue for converting black money to white money. A number of TMC leaders won prize worth Rs. 1 cr.
— Dilip Ghosh (@DilipGhoshBJP) November 6, 2022
BJP leader Dilip Ghosh has now hit out at the Trinamool Congress and its leader Anubrata Mondal. “Every scam in Paschim Banga is inter-connected. The lottery scam came to light in 2016 from a CAG report. The govt paid no heed despite knowing everything,” he tweeted.
“The people of the govt are involved with the 40-45 lotteries that run in the state…Lottery has become an avenue for converting black money to white money. A number of TMC leaders won prize worth Rs. 1 cr,” he had alleged.
Seems like publishing the images of TMC leaders as winners on the bulletins has cost Dear Lottery “dearly” !!!
— Suvendu Adhikari • শুভেন্দু অধিকারী (@SuvenduWB) November 8, 2022
That’s why the identity of the winners is missing from the latest bulletins:-@dir_ed pic.twitter.com/wxCIDtw5wC
Similar allegations were also levelled against Anubrata Mondal by BJP leader Suvendu Adhikari. He pointed out how the lottery company stopped posting pictures of the winners after several TMC leaders including Mondal and MLA Vivek Gupta’s wife were declared winners.
