SILCHAR, July 17: Goldighi Shopping Mall, once touted as a ‘dream project’ of Silchar Municipality Board’s outgoing Chairperson Bithika Dev, has become the obvious target of the opposition BJP for the forthcoming civic body polls.
BJP’s Cachar district president Uday Shankar Goswami today reiterated that a huge amount of money was laundered by the previous civic body led by Dev in the name of allotting stalls in the mall at Premtola point in Silchar town. Goswami said controversial Market Inspector of Silchar Municipality Abhinash Bhattacharjee was instrumental in the entire scam and he was shielded by Dev and other outgoing Congress ward commissioners. Maintaining that an employees’ union of the municipality had raised a allegation against Bhattacharjee. Goswami today demanded criminal case against Bhattacharjee alleging that the erstwhile board had collected security money from the willing shop-keepers but did not deposit the money in Municipality’s bank account. Earlier, former Union Minister Sontosh Mohan Dev, State’s Urban Development Minister Dinesh Prasad Goala as well as Bithika Dev, in a joint press meet, refuted the allegation with the argument that the money collected against allotment of stalls in the mall had been deposited in SBI’s New Silchar branch and account number was 30684202964. At present Rs 59.6 lakh was in the account, Dev said, and added that anybody could check it with the bank. Goala, on the other hand, claimed that Supriya Dutta, administrator of the Municipality Board, had informed him that there was no mismanagement of fund in the shopping mall episode.
BJP today nullified the claims made by the Congress leaders. Goswami said till now no investigation has been started, then how come Congress leaders give a clean chit to Abinash Bhattacharjee.
Meanwhile, Bithika Dev said Goldighi Shopping Mall would not only graduate the town to a modern city, but at the same time would also solve the traffic problem. Further, the Municipality would have a steady source of income, and thus the Board would have financial ability of its own to take care of the civic services of the people. She said the mall would have an underground water tank with a capacity of two lakh litres, and in case of any major fire incidents, fire brigade would not have to run here and there for water.
The BJP today made it clear that it would make Goldighi Shopping Mall a major issue in the forthcoming Municipality Board elections. SOURCE: THE SENTINEL
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