Kolkata, Jan 8 Acting on a call given by party supremo and West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, leaders and workers of the Trinamool Congress on Thursday evening held protest rallies across the state to condemn the Enforcement Directorate (ED) raids at the Kolkata office of political consultancy firm I-PAC and the residence of its director and co-founder, Pratik Jain.
Banerjee announced the protest programme after visiting the I-PAC office at Salt Lake in Kolkata earlier in the day. She had directed party units to organise protest marches in all blocks and neighbourhoods across the state the same evening.
In Kolkata, Trinamool Congress councillor Baiswanor Chatterjee led a protest at Hazra Crossing in south Kolkata, with party workers holding placards and raising slogans against the central agencies. Similar protests were held in multiple parts of the city.
At Dinendra Street in Maniktala area of north Kolkata, Trinamool spokesperson Kunal Ghosh participated in a procession while seated in a wheelchair. He was seen holding a placard criticising the ED and the CBI. Speaking to mediapersons during the protest, Ghosh alleged that central agencies were being used to target the Trinamool Congress ahead of the Assembly elections.
“The BJP is using central agencies to target our party. Raids are being conducted in the name of investigation, but this only exposes their political insecurity,” he said.
Party workers also took out protest marches from Surendra Nath College in north Kolkata and along Bentinck Street, raising slogans against the BJP and central agencies.
In Birbhum district’s Nanoor block, Trinamool leaders led a protest march alleging a conspiracy to seize party-related documents in the name of investigation. In South 24 Parganas district, a large procession was taken out in Bhangar, led by Canning East MLA Saokat Molla.
Similar protest rallies were reported from several other districts, including Baidyabati, Serampore, Singur, Arambagh, Haripal and Tarakeshwar in Hooghly district, Ghatal in West Midnapore district, and Berhampore in Murshidabad district.
The ED on Thursday conducted search operations at the Salt Lake Sector V office of I-PAC, which has been working as a political consultancy firm for the Trinamool Congress since 2019. ED teams also searched the Loudon Street residence of Pratik Jain, who is a co-founder and director of I-PAC.
Following the searches, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee visited Jain’s residence in central Kolkata. While leaving the premises, she was seen carrying documents and a laptop, which she said belonged to the Trinamool Congress and were related to the party’s upcoming Assembly elections.
Banerjee later went to the I-PAC office in Salt Lake. During her visit, police officials accompanying her were seen removing files and diaries from the office and placing them inside her vehicle.
The Chief Minister alleged that the ED, under the guise of conducting raids, had “looted” documents related to the party’s election strategy, candidate list, internal data and financial papers.
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