Kolkata, Jan 12 Trinamool Congress General Secretary and party Lok Sabha member Abhishek Banerjee on Monday directed the party's Information Technology cell -- termed as "Digital Yoddhas" or "Digital Warriors" -- to launch a massive digital campaign explaining why the Trinamool Congress is opposing the Enforcement Directorate's (ED) raid and search operations at the Indian Political Action Committee (I-PAC) office and at the residence of I-PAC co-founder Pratik Jain last week.
He issued the instructions while outlining the party’s position at a digital conclave of the Trinamool Congress on Monday afternoon, which was attended by members of the party’s IT cell.
A member of the party’s IT cell present at the conclave said the first point of contention raised by the Trinamool Congress is why the ED conducted the raids and searches in a six-year-old coal smuggling case just ahead of the West Bengal Assembly elections this year.
The second point, the IT cell member said, was why the residence of an I-PAC director operating from Kolkata was chosen for the raid and search operations when two other directors were operating from Delhi and Hyderabad.
The third contention, which the member said is a summation of the first two, is that the alleged intention behind the raids and searches was to access the blueprint of the Trinamool Congress’s election strategy for the 2026 West Bengal Assembly elections.
“Our General Secretary has directed us to start an extensive campaign on these lines immediately,” the IT cell member said.
Incidentally, on Thursday, different ED teams conducted raids and searches at a total of 10 places, of which six were in Kolkata and four in New Delhi. However, the teams faced resistance at two places, both in Kolkata.
While ED officials were conducting raids and searches at Jain’s residence in Loudon Street in central Kolkata and at I-PAC’s office in Salt Lake in the northern outskirts of Kolkata, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee arrived at the two places one after another, accompanied by top officials from the state administration and the police.
She left both places with several paper files and electronic documents.
Earlier in the day, the Supreme Court heard a matter related to the raids, with the ED accusing the Chief Minister of misusing her constitutional authority to create hindrances for central investigating agency officials in discharging their official duty.
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