Tough days are ahead for Trinamool Congress strongman and party’s Birbhum district president, Anubrata Mandal as he will have to face parallel interrogation by Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) in connection with two cases, the first being the cattle and coal smuggling and the second being post-poll violence in West Bengal.

Mandal has been asked by the CBI to be present at the agency’s office at central government offices (CGO) complex at Salt Lake in the northern outskirts of Kolkata on Tuesday (May 24). On May 19, the CBI officials grilled Mandal at the agency’s Nizam Place office in central Kolkata.

Highly placed CBI sources said that there is a logistic problem since the two teams that are conducting probes on the two different cases are operating from two different offices at two different corners of the city. While the team conducting the cattle and coal smuggling probe is operating from Nizam Palace office in central Kolkata, and the one conducting the post-poll violence probe is operating from CGO complex in Salt Lake, with the distance between the two offices being around 14 km.

CBI sources said there is a need to maintain a coordination between the two teams so that Mandal is not summoned on the same time and if possible, also on the same day. Sources said that since both the teams are keen to expedite their respective probes, there is a possibility that each team will get the chance to interrogate Mandal on every alternate day and if necessary, even on Sundays.

If that happens then the Trinamool strongman, who is currently at his residence at Bolpur in Birbhum district, will have to shift to his Chinar Park residence in Kolkata for quite some time.

A BJP worker in Birbhum district was lynched soon after the 2021 West Bengal assembly election results were announced. The family members of the victim complained that the lynching happened on the instructions of Mandal.

(The story has been published via a syndicated feed with a modified headline)