The Bharatiya Janata Party on Monday launched a scathing attack on the opposition CPI(M) and held the former Chief Minister Manik Sarkar responsible for the Rose Valley chit fund scam in Tripura.

Addressing a press conference here at Agartala BJP party office on Monday, the BJP state spokesperson Subrata Chakraborty said, “It was the former Chief Minister Manik Sarkar who on May 7, 2008 had cut the ribbon of the Rose Valley Chit Fund and appealed to the people of the state to invest in the firm.”

“During the time of Manik Sarkar and his Left front government, the Rose Valley Chit fund company had siphoned off the hard earned money of the poor of this state,” Chakraborty said, adding that the CBI had questioned the Left leader Bijita Nath and Goutam Das in connection with the chit fund scam.

Chakraborty’s statement has come up in response to the CPI(M)’s challenge to the BJP state president Rajib Bhattacharjee over Bhattacharjee’s remark that Manik Sarkar looted people’s money and construction of CPI(M) party office through Rose Valley.

The CPI(M) in its press communique on April 21 last also stated that the CBI had failed to crack the case of Rose Valley chit fund scam. Reacting on this, the BJP spokesperson Subrata Chakraborty on Monday said, “After the BJP formed its government in Tripura in 2018, it has written for CBI enquiry into the Rose Valley chit fund scam and accordingly the CBI is working on it on their way and the government has nothing to intervene on this.”

“The former Chief Minister Manik Sarkar and his Left bastion is responsible for the scam that the Rose Valley did in the state of Tripura,” he said, adding that the 25 years of Left government was deep necked in corruption from block level to the recruitment process.

He alleged, “The former government adopted the policy of divide and rule, deprivation and domination in the state of Tripura during their 25 years tenure.”