Coming down heavily upon the Mamata Banerjee-led West Bengal over state minister Partha Chatterjee’s alleged involvement in the SSC scam, the BJP  said that those who used to raise Maa, Maati, Manush (mother, motherland and people) slogan are today chanting only one word – “money”.

Addressing a press conference, Union minister and BJP leader Meenakshi Lekhi said, “Today, through all of you, I want to remind the people of the country that those who used to raise the slogan of Maa, Maati, Manush, today they are chanting only one word – money, money, money.”

The Union minister also hit out at Chief Minister and TMC chief Mamata Banerjee for remaining silent over the entire matter. “Surprisingly, a huge cache of money has been recovered, but Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee ji is completely silent,” she said.

The BJP’s attack came a day after the ED recovered unaccounted money from one of the flats linked to Arpita Mukherjee, a close associate of the West Bengal Industry Minister.

“Monalisa Das, another acquaintance of Partha Chatterjee, who was admitted to a university in 2014, is today a professor there and the head of department of Bengali. She has 10 flat papers in his name,” Lekhi said.

The huge cash was recovered five days after the federal probe agency seized more than Rs 21 crore in cash, along with jewellery and foreign exchange, from another flat of Mukherjee.

The BJP leader said that Mukherjee told the ED that Chatterjee had turned her house into an ATM and that the money was being circulated from top to bottom level.

“Arpita Mukherjee’s two statements have come. She said Partha Chatterjee had used her house like an ATM. She also said the money used to go from the bottom to the top. It is understood who is the lower one, but who is the upper one, it should also come to the light,” she added.

Chatterjee, currently the Industry Minister in Mamata Banerjee-led state government, was arrested by the ED on July 23. His associate was also arrested on the same day.

The ED had also carried out massive raids at the residences of Chatterjee and Mukherjee and several others as part of a probe into the alleged irregularities in the recruitment of teachers and non-teaching staff in the state-run schools through the School Service Commission (SSC).

The Trinamool Congress (TMC) leader was the education minister when the alleged teacher recruitment scam were carried out in the state.