Kolkata witnessed a dramatic escalation in the ongoing tussle between the Centre and the West Bengal government on Thursday, as Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee personally stormed a raid site to accuse the Enforcement Directorate (ED) of conducting an unconstitutional data grab targeting her party’s internal strategies.
The flashpoint was a series of ED searches at 15 locations across the country, probing an alleged organised racket that duped job-seekers with promises of fake government posts. In Kolkata, the agency’s focus fell on the offices of the Indian Political Action Committee (I-PAC) in Salt Lake’s Sector V and the residence of its chief, Prateek Jain, in the upscale Loudon Street area. I-PAC is a prominent political consultancy that has managed the Trinamool Congress’s (TMC) election campaigns and IT strategy.
“Vendetta, Not Law Enforcement”: Mamata’s On-Site Outburst
Emerging from Jain’s residence after confronting ED officials, a furious Chief Minister Banerjee launched a blistering attack on the agency and the BJP-led central government. She alleged the raids were a pretext to seize her party’s confidential data ahead of elections.
“Is it the ED’s job or Amit Shah’s job to seize our party’s hard disks, candidate lists, and campaign strategies?” Banerjee questioned, addressing the media at the site. “This is not law enforcement; it is political vendetta.”
She directly linked the action to the upcoming elections, alleging a coordinated effort to weaken the TMC by combining these raids with the targeted deletion of voters through the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls. The Chief Minister warned of reciprocal action, stating her party workers would raid BJP offices if such “intimidation” continued.
BJP Hits Back: “Condemnable Obstruction of Justice”
The opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) swiftly condemned the Chief Minister’s intervention. Leader of the Opposition in the Bengal assembly, Suvendu Adhikari, slammed her for “obstructing justice” and recalled her 2021 dharna at the CBI office during the arrest of former Kolkata Police Commissioner Rajeev Kumar.
“She has a history of disrupting central agencies. For a Chief Minister, who is also the head of the administration, to personally show up and interfere in an ongoing investigation is condemnable,” Adhikari stated. He expressed confidence that the ED would take appropriate legal action against this interference and urged that constitutional bodies be allowed to function unhindered.
The Raids and the Escalating Centre-State Conflict
While the ED’s operation is officially part of a money laundering probe into the alleged fake jobs scam, the specific financial links to I-PAC remain unclear, as the agency has not yet issued any formal statement. Sources reported that several files and documents were loaded into vehicles from the raided premises under police escort.
The TMC has framed the entire operation as a brazen attempt by the BJP to use central agencies to steal its electoral blueprint and intimidate its leaders. The party is reportedly exploring legal options to challenge the raids.
With no official word from either the ED or I-PAC, the political storm rests on sharply conflicting narratives. For the BJP and its supporters, it is a legitimate probe into corruption being resisted by a corrupt administration. For the TMC and its allies, it is an unprecedented assault on political privacy and federal autonomy, marking a new low in the use of agencies for electoral advantage. The confrontation has set the stage for a protracted and bitter legal and political battle in the heat of the election season.
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