NEW DELHI: A day after the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) conducted searches at multiple premises of TMC leader Mahua Moitra in the cash-for-query case, the former MP wrote to the Election Commission accusing the probe agency of harassing her and throttling her election campaign efforts.
“Despite knowing about my candidacy, the CBI has deliberately chosen to conduct four consecutive raids on four of my separate properties. This was done with the sole intention of hindering my campaign process and creating a negative perception about me in the run-up to poll day,” Moitra wrote in the letter.
Referring to the raids as “illegal and disproportionate acts undertaken by the CBI to harass and throttle my campaign efforts,” she said that there is a “need for urgent issuance of guidelines/framework” regarding the conduct of investigations by Central investigating agencies during the period of the Model Code of Conduct.
Early this week, the Lokpal directed the CBI to probe the allegations against her and submit a report in six months. Moitra claimed that her election campaigning office and MP office were among the premises the CBI “illegally” raided.
“Hence, there is no doubt that it was unequivocally aware that their actions were targeted to throttle my election campaign efforts and to thereby illegally harass me,” she said.
“Such a smear campaign perpetrated by the CBI has solely and unjustly enriched my political opponents at my cost and peril,” the MP said, adding that the “timing and methodology employed by the CBI creates at the very minimum, a sufficient amount of suspicion that they are dancing to the tunes of political dicta,” Moitra said.