Trinamool has institutionalised corruption: Yechury

Alleging a "match-fixing" between the BJP and the Trinamool Congress, CPI-M general secretary Sitaram Yechury on Wednesday charged the Mamata Banerjee government with "institutionalising corruption" in West Bengal.

Campaigning for the assembly polls in Siliguri in north Bengal, the Marxist leader also accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi of "selling the country".

"The Supreme Court had ordered a CBI probe in the Saradha scam, but it is being done clumsily. It is so because there is a match-fixing between the Trinamool and the BJP. The BJP needs the support of the Trinamool in parliament," said Yechury, referring to the multi-crore-rupee chit fun scam in which many Trinamool leaders have been arrested and interrogated.

Citing the recent sting operation by Narada News, in which over a dozen Trinamool leaders including MPs and state ministers have been purportedly caught on camera accepting bribes, Yechury said Bengal has never seen such corruption before.

"From Saradha to Narada, in the last five years, they have institutionalised corruption. It has never happened before in Bengal," he said.

He also took a jibe at Modi's recent election campaign in Assam where he touched on his early days as a tea-seller.

"Campaigning in Assam, the prime minister said he used to sell Assam tea, when he will campaign here, he will say he used to sell Darjeeling tea. Don't know what tea he sold, but now he is selling the country," Yechury said.