West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has come down heavily on the central government after Enforcement Directorate (ED) raids at the residence of Indian Political Action Committee (I-PAC) chief Pratik Jain and the organisation's Salt Lake office, signalling that the raids were meant to weaken the Trinamool Congress (TMC). She dared the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to fight it politically to win the state.
Mamata Banerjee also reportedly stormed the residence of Pratik Jain during the raids, alleging that the agency was “confiscating” TMC's documents and hard disks containing details of party candidates for the upcoming Assembly election. I-PAC, a political consultancy founded by Prashant Kishor, is the TMC's poll strategist. The group also looks after the IT and media cell of the party.
In a fiery response to the ED raids, Mamata Banerjee said, “I dare BJP to fight us politically if they want to win Bengal.”
She accused the ED of trying to take away hard disks, mobile phones, candidate lists and internal strategy documents of the ruling party.
“ED transferred TMC data and poll strategies into their system during raids at I-PAC office, which is a crime. Assembly polls will pass if TMC has to draw up election plans afresh,” Mamata Banerjee said after visiting I-PAC's Salt Lake office during ED raids.
Emerging out of Pratik Jain's residence with a green folder, Mamata Banerjee said she had “brought back” the party’s documents and hard disks containing the Trinamool election plan.
The chief minister also alleged that the ED started the search operation at 6 AM when nobody was present at the Salt Lake office.
“TMC is a registered political party, pays income tax; Centre cannot bulldoze us using money and muscle power,” the chief minister said, accusing the BJP of “deleting names through SIR" and "raiding offices of political parties”.
Asserting that her party was in fact exercising restraint, Mamata Banerjee asked, “What will happen if we reciprocate this ED search by raiding BJP party offices in Bengal; we are exercising restraint,” warning that the restraint should not be mistaken as “weakness”.
“Our restraint, courtesy in wake of this attack, should not be mistaken for our weakness,” she said. The TMC chief also announced that the party will organise protests across West Bengal on Thursday, 8 January, afternoon “against ED loot of TMC documents during raids at I-PAC office”.
Launching a blistering attack on Union Home Minister Amit Shah, Mamata Banerjee described the searches as “political vendetta” and said constitutional agencies were being misused to intimidate opposition parties.
“This is not law enforcement, this is political vendetta. The home minister is behaving like the nastiest home minister, not someone who protects the country,” she alleged.
