Kolkata/New Delhi: West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Friday accused the ED of acting as a political tool of the BJP to “steal” her party’s internal strategy, asserting that she did nothing wrong in reaching the premises linked to I-PAC during the central agency’s raids a day ago.
Addressing a rally here after a massive 10-km-long protest march, Banerjee said she had intervened at the raid site purely in her capacity as the chairperson of the Trinamool Congress and not as the CM.
“What I did yesterday, I did as the TMC chairperson. I have done nothing illegal,” she said, referring to her unexpected arrival at the venue of ED’s searches at I-PAC offices and the residence of its India head Pratik Jain.
I-PAC provides political consultancy to the TMC.
Banerjee alleged that the agency entered the premises early in the morning and that by the time she reached, “a lot could have already been taken away”.
“You entered at 6 am; I went at 11.45 am. By then, many things might have been stolen,” Banerjee said, accusing the ED of attempting to access her party’s strategic data ahead of the 2026 Assembly elections.
Escalating her confrontation with the Centre, Banerjee claimed that “all agencies have been captured” and accused the BJP of forcibly occupying power in several states.
“You captured Maharashtra, Haryana and Bihar by force. Do you think you can capture Bengal too?” she asked, adding that any political attack only strengthens her resolve. “If someone tries to hit me politically, I get politically rejuvenated and reborn,” she said.
The chief minister also trained her guns on the Election Commission, alleging that the BJP had “stolen” the mandate in Maharashtra with the poll panel’s help and was now attempting to replicate it in Bengal through the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) by deleting genuine voters’ names.
She announced that her party’s “next destination” would be the Election Commission in New Delhi to oppose what she called harassment of voters during SIR.
TMC chairperson on Friday also lodged two police complaints against the ED in connection with the agency’s raids at I-PAC and the residence of its chief Prateek Jain here.
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.
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.
Cases at the Shakespeare Sarani PS were lodged under sections of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) pertaining to criminal intimidation, theft and criminal trespass, as well as under Section 66 of the IT Act, which deals with computer- related offences, criminalising dishonest or fraudulent acts like unauthorised access or data damage, the police officer said.
Besides, police also lodged a suo motu case at the same PS against the agency late on Thursday evening.
Meanwhile, several Trinamool MPs were detained while staging a protest outside the Home Ministry’s office here on Friday against alleged misuse of probe agencies by the Centre.
The Delhi Police evicted the protesters from the spot, lifting them up and dragging the parliamentarians to clear the area.
A Delhi Police officer said the MPs were detained and taken to Parliament Street Police Station, as protests are not permitted outside the Home Ministry’s office. The MPs were released by the police around 3 pm.
Holding placards and raising slogans alleging misuse of the ED, MPs Derek O’Brien, Satabdi Roy, Mahua Moitra, Bapi Haldar, Saket Gokhale, Pratima Mondal, Kirti Azad and Sharmila Sarkar tried to enter the Kartavya Bhavan, which houses the Home Ministry.
The MPs were stopped from entering the building, after which they staged a protest at the gate, disregarding requests made by the police to vacate the area. They were then forcefully evicted from the spot.
Visuals of O’Brien, Moitra, Haldar, Roy, and Gokhale being physically picked, pushed and shoved in a bus flooded social media, with several of the clips being shared by the TMC on its official X handle.
“What kind of arrogance is this, Amit Shah? Are you now using your Delhi Police to assault elected representatives just to crush democracy? Is this how dissent is silenced in your India?” the TMC charged in a post on X.
“Admit it, you are rattled! First, the shameless misuse of the ED. Now, an attack on the peaceful dharna of our eight MPs. This desperation exposes your fear. You may try to choke democracy, but Bengal will not be cowed. Shame on you and your police!” the ruling party in poll-bound West Bengal said.
The MPs also shared visuals from the bus, in which they were seen raising slogans against the Union government.
Moitra also took a dig at Union Youth Affairs and Sports Minister Mansukh Mandaviya’s faux pas moment when he recently mispronounced the names of two Kolkata-based football clubs.
Talking to the media at the Parliament Street Police station, Moitra accused the government of “using” the ED to “steal” their party’s election strategy.
“Never before in a democracy has a government made ED its agent to steal information and election strategy from our political consultant. They are claiming there was a seven-to-10-year-old scam. You could not probe it all this time; now you are remembering it on the eve of the election.
“Mamata Banerjee went to the place and took away the election strategy; she’s showing how to fight the BJP. People of Bengal will teach them a lesson,” the Lok Sabha MP from West Bengal’s Krishnanagar said.
“We were holding a peaceful protest, you have seen how they dragged us. But we are tough. This is our democratic right, they pulled us here,” she said.
Lok Sabha MP Kirti Azad said, “We were holding a peaceful protest against the unconstitutional raid by the ED. Amit Shah wanted to steal our election strategy and the names of candidates.”
“We want to know why the ED attacks only the opposition,” he said, while adding that Narayan Rane, Ajit Pawar and Himanta Biswa Sarma were branded as corrupt by ruling leaders, but no action was taken against them.
In a post on X, Rajya Sabha MP Gokhale said, “After the failure of SIR, the BJP has resorted to its old tactic of using pliant central agencies”.
“Today, we eight MPs of TMC were peacefully protesting outside Amit Shah’s office in Delhi. We were dragged, assaulted, and forcibly arrested. This is how scared Amit Shah is — pulling MPs by their hair and dragging them on the floor,” he said, sharing a video of the MPs being evicted by police.
Reacting to the police action, TMC national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee took to X to say, “Democracy is punished. Criminals are rewarded. Agencies are weaponised. Elections are manipulated. Jail the protesters. Bail the rapists. This is BJP’s version of New India.”
“Even if the rest of the country is forced to surrender, Bengal will resist. We will fight you tooth and nail and defeat you, no matter how much force you unleash,” the Lok Sabha MP from Diamond Harbour said.
