Manas Dasgupta
NEW DELHI, Jan 9: The face-off between the Centre and the West Bengal government over the Enforcement Directorate’s raids on the Indian Political Action Committee (I-PAC) offices and its co-founder Pratik Jain’s residence in Kolkata escalated on Friday with the Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee hitting the streets of Kolkata taking out a protest rally and the BJP accusing her of being knee-deep in corruption.
Accompanied by senior Trinamool Congress (TMC) leaders, ministers, MPs, MLAs and a large number of supporters, Banerjee started the march from the 8B Bus Stand area to Hazra More in the heart of the city amid sloganeering against the BJP-led central government, accusing it of “misusing central agencies for political vendetta” ahead of the 2026 assembly elections in the State.
The rally was organised a day after the officials of the Enforcement Directorate raided 10 offices and residences of I-PAC and its co-founder in Kolkata and Delhi in connection with some alleged coal scam and Ms Banerjee made a dramatic appearance along with some officers of Kolkata police as the raid was on at Jain’s residence on Loudon Street. The TMC supremo had alleged that the agency was attempting to seize the party’s internal documents, hard disks and confidential organisational data unrelated to any financial investigation.
Ms Banerjee also lashed out at the Centre and the BJP after the some TMC Members of Parliament including Mahua Moitra, Derek O’Brien, among others, were detained outside union home minister Amit Shah’s office in Delhi while protesting against the ED raids on the I-PAC chief Pratik Jain’s Kolkata home.
Banerjee said the treatment meted out to the MPs was “arrogance in uniform.” “I strongly condemn the shameful and unacceptable treatment meted out to our Members of Parliament. Dragging elected representatives on the streets for exercising their democratic right to protest outside the Home Minister’s office is not law enforcement – it is arrogance in uniform. This is a democracy, not the BJP’s private property,” the West Bengal CM wrote on X.
Eight TMC MPs, Derek O’Brien, Satabdi Roy, Mahua Moitra, Bapi Haldar, Saket Gokhale, Pratima Mondal, Kirti Azad and Dr Sharmila Sarkar were staging a dharna in front of Mr Shah’s office in Delhi protesting against alleged misuse of the central agencies by the Centre for political purposes. The MPs were forcefully evicted from the spot by Delhi Police, with MPs being dragged and physically carried away by police personnel.
Calcutta High Court on Friday adjourned the scheduled hearing of cases related to the Enforcement Directorate’s search and seizure operations at political consultancy firm I-PAC’s office on account of unmanageable chaos inside the courtroom. Justice Suvra Ghosh, in whose court the matter was scheduled to be heard, adjourned the hearing till January 14 after repeated requests to those not connected with the petitions to leave the courtroom fell on deaf ears.
The court was scheduled to hear dual petitions by the ED and the Trinamool Congress in connection with the dramatic developments witnessed on Thursday after Ms Banerjee landed up at the agency’s operation venues and alleged that the investigators were trying to seize TMC’s sensitive data ahead of the upcoming high-stakes State polls.
On Thursday Ms Banerjee visited the I-PAC office and the ED accused her of removing key evidences. Both the ED and I-PAC on Thursday moved the Calcutta High Court over the central agency’s searches at the office and residence of I-PAC chief Pratik Jain.
Addressing the rally in Kolkata, Ms Banerjee alleged that “Senior BJP leaders in Delhi receive coal scam proceeds; I can furnish proof before public if needed,” claimed. She also alleged that the BJP won Maharashtra polls by stealing mandate with Election Commission’s help and they want to repeat it in Bengal.
“During raids at I-PAC yesterday, they tried to steal strategy details of my party; we condemn this,” she said. “What I did yesterday was nothing wrong; they tried to steal my party’s data.” Speaking about the treatment of TMC MPs during the protest against ED’s action, she said, “Police assaulted our MPs during protest in Delhi, but BJP gets red carpet welcome in Bengal.”
Congress leader Pawan Khera said the BJP thinks of the Enforcement Directorate (ED), Income Tax Department (I-T), and the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) as its personal army. He claimed that the ED only conduct raids in selected non-BJP ruled states. “The moment we see a news flash about an ED raid, we know it has happened in a select few States only. We have been saying that the BJP thinks of the ED, I-T and CBI as its private army. This is harmful for democracy…” he said.
The TMC chairperson on Friday lodged dual complaints against the ED in connection with the agency’s raids at the office of political consultancy firm I-PAC and the residence of its chief Pratik Jain in Kolkata. Based on the complaints, the Kolkata and Bidhannagar Police filed FIRs and initiated an investigation, an officer said.
The complaints, coupled with the TMC’s petition in the Calcutta High Court against the ED, is believed to have taken the confrontation between the two sides a notch higher, after Kolkata witnessed dramatic scenes of the Chief Minister landing up at the search operation venues and allegedly removing “key documents” and electronic devices from the sites.
CM Banerjee lodged her complaints against unknown ED officials and CRPF personnel at the Shakespeare Sarani Police Station, and against unknown ED sleuths at the Electronic Complex PS under the Bidhannagar Police, in connection with the agency’s raids at Jain’s Loudon Street residence and his Salt Lake office, respectively, on Thursday.
In a writ petition filed before the Calcutta High Court, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Friday accused the West Bengal Police, allegedly acting in collusion with Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, of obstructing its officials and failing to discharge their public duty in “flagrant and blatant disregard to law” during an ongoing search operation in Kolkata carried out on January 8.
In the 28-page petition, the ED said the state police prevented its officers from carrying out their official duties under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), 2002. The agency alleged that the situation escalated after the Chief Minister on Thursday entered the residential premises of Pratik Jain, director of political consultancy firm I-PAC, during an ED search and took away what the agency described as “key evidence”, including physical documents and electronic devices.
The TMC on Friday also moved the Calcutta High Court against the ED raids at the office of political consultancy firm I-PAC and the residence of its chief in Kolkata, seeking restraint on “misuse and dissemination” of documents seized during the search operations. The ruling party in West Bengal, in its petition, alleged that the ED seized sensitive and confidential political data meant for the TMC’s use in the upcoming Assembly elections, in a display of “arbitrary, mala fide, and colourable exercise of power.”
The BJP on Friday condemned Ms Banerjee for her conduct during the ED raids at a private consultancy firm and alleged that her actions show she tried to “rescue something sensitive,” implicating her and her party in the money laundering case linked to the alleged coal smuggling.
Addressing a press conference at the BJP headquarters in New Delhi, senior BJP leader Ravi Shankar Prasad said she should be made an accused for intimidating Enforcement Directorate officials investigating the case and “snatching away” documents from them during the raids.
“There are a lot of suspicious circumstances surrounding the barbaric action of Mamata Banerjee,” the former Union Minister said. Mr Prasad alleged that Banerjee, accompanied by State police officials, entered a private consultancy firm’s premises where an investigation was underway, threatened the investigation officers of the ED and left “snatching away the papers.”
The BJP MP Sanjay Jaiswal on Friday accused Ms Banerjee of “siding with the mafias” claiming the I-PAC to be “a very controversial company” which works with “mafias to topple government.” “When a raid takes place at someone’s house, the Chief Minister herself goes there and steals the documents… I-PAC has been a very controversial company from the beginning… In Bihar too, I-PAC spent ₹60 crore of its money on the Jan Suraaj Party… In Jharkhand, too, they hatched a similar conspiracy, and they succeeded in Jharkhand,” Sanjay Jaiswal said.
The PDP president Mehbooba Mufti on Friday described Ms Banerjee as a “tigress”, saying the TMC chief was “very brave” and would not surrender. Ms Mufti said while such raids by ED or other investigative agencies have become a normal thing in Jammu and Kashmir, “the whole country is tasting it now.”
Mamata Banerjee took to X to respond to the arrest of protesting TMC MP’s outside the Home Minister’s house and said, “Democracy does not function on the convenience or comfort of those in power. When BJP leaders protest, they expect red carpets and special privileges. When opposition MPs raise their voices, they are dragged, detained, and humiliated. This double standard exposes the BJP’s idea of democracy – obedience, not dissent,” she said.
The Congress leader Sandeep Dikshit alleged that the ED carries out raids to give political benefit to the BJP, saying the agency has failed to “prove its cases.” He further said the use of ED was “part of the politics” of the ruling BJP. Mr Dikshit said, “ED has not been able to prove one case till now. The ED always conducts raids to provide political benefits to the BJP. This is all a part of the politics.”
The TMC MP Mahua Moitra on Friday accused Union Home Minister Amit Shah of “misusing” the Enforcement Directorate (ED) to “loot and plunder” her party’s election data through a raid on the I-PAC office in Kolkata. Speaking to reporters in New Delhi, she labelled ED as the “Extortion Directorate” and questioned its ongoing actions against opposition parties.
“We have been detained and brought to Parliament Street police station. We were protesting peacefully outside the office of the Union Home Minister Amit Shah, who most shamelessly sent his Enforcement Directorate, the Extortion Directorate, to loot, plunder and do political espionage on our party and steal our election data and documents,” Ms Moitra said.
Condemning the West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee for allegedly disrupting the Enforcement Directorate’s search operations at the offices of the political consultancy firm I-PAC, the Chhattisgarh Deputy Chief Minister Vijay Sharma on Friday demanded that the immediate filing of an FIR against the West Bengal CM and an arrest for allegedly disrupting an official investigation.
Speaking to the media, he said, “She wants to have control over the Constitution. She wants to be above all the constitutional institutions. This is definitely not acceptable. The Constitution is above all. The beliefs of the nation are above all. Even if there are not one but 100 Mamata Banerjees, nothing will end (the functioning of institutions). There should be an FIR against her, and she should be arrested.”
Deputy Chief Minister Vijay Sharma further said that there is a “procedure” to stop an ongoing investigation and a specific way to “raise objections.” He questioned the West Bengal Chief Minister’s method of alleged disruption of the investigation.
I-PAC, a political consultancy firm, has been assisting the Trinamool Congress with strategy for the Bengal Assembly elections later this year and the ED had alleged that Banerjee walked out with a laptop, phone and documents from Jain’s house during the raids, conducted in connection with a coal smuggling case, on Thursday.