Kolkata:
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) and its co-founder Pratik Jain escalated on Friday with Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee taking out a protest rally on the streets of Kolkata and the BJP accusing her of being knee-deep in corruption.
Justice Suvra Ghosh, the Calcutta High Court judge hearing various petitions on the issue, also left the courtroom, citing excessive crowding. Since the high court will not be functioning over the weekend, the case will now be taken up only on Wednesday.
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.
In its petition, which was being heard on Friday, the probe agency alleged Banerjee had misused her constitutional post by hindering officials who were doing their duty during the raids at the I-PAC office and Jain’s house. It also called for a CBI probe into the matter, including the role of the chief minister.
Jain and the Trinamool Congress had filed counter-petitions. The party said the ED’s raid was aimed at seizing documents related to the Trinamool’s poll strategy ahead of the Bengal elections so that they could be handed over to the BJP.
Hitting The Streets
While the court proceedings were underway, Chief Minister Banerjee began a large protest rally on foot from Kolkata’s Jadavpur to Hazra crossing, 6 km away, to protest against the raids. Banerjee walked at the front with a big group of party leaders and workers behind her and a large crowd lined the sides of the road to support her.
Banerjee and other leaders of the party have accused the BJP of being desperate to win the Bengal elections and using all possible methods to achieve that.
The BJP, in turn, alleged that the Trinamool Congress chief was knee-deep in corruption and senior leader Ravi Shankar Prasad said she should be made an accused for intimidating ED officials.
“There are a lot of suspicious circumstances surrounding the barbaric action of Mamata Benerjee… This means she was trying to rescue something sensitive implicating her and her party,” he said.
