ED vs TMC In Bengal: Mamata Rushes To I-PAC Chief's House Amid ED Raid, Slams Amit Shah

Tension escalated at the Kolkata office of political consultants IPAC on Thursday when West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee arrived at the premises while the Enforcement Directorate was conducting searches linked to an alleged fake government job racket.

The visit unfolded into a public confrontation, with Banerjee accusing the central agency of overreach and alleging that investigators had seized party-related material, including hard disks and lists of candidates.

Speaking to reporters, the Chief Minister questioned the ED's actions and directly criticised Union Home Minister Amit Shah. "Is it the duty of the ED, Amit Shah, to collect the party's hard disk, candidate list?... The nasty, naughty Home Minister who cannot protect the country is taking away all my party documents," she said, framing the searches as politically motivated.

Banerjee warned that if similar raids were carried out against the Bharatiya Janata Party, the response would be fierce, and accused the Centre of compiling information on the Trinamool Congress ahead of the state elections.

The ED has said it is probing an organised network that allegedly duped job-seekers by promising government appointments in exchange for money. As part of that investigation, searches were reported at 15 locations across the country. Officials have described the operation as aimed at dismantling a fraudulent recruitment scheme, while opposition leaders have decried the timing and scope of the raids.

Banerjee also renewed allegations about the ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in West Bengal, claiming that voter names were being removed en masse. At a public meeting in Gangasagar on January 5, she asserted that roughly 54 lakh names had been deleted from voter lists in South 24 Parganas district alone and accused authorities of misusing artificial intelligence to purge rolls.

She accused the Election Commission of functioning like a "WhatsApp Commission" and mockingly referred to Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar as "Vanish Kumar," warning that those responsible for making voters' names disappear would be held to account.

The Chief Minister's remarks reflect mounting friction between the state government and central institutions in the run-up to elections scheduled in West Bengal in the first half of the year. Her office and party activists have repeatedly alleged that central agencies are being used to intimidate opposition figures and disrupt political organisation, charges the Centre has denied in various forums.

Following the IPAC searches and Ms Banerjee's public intervention, party workers and supporters gathered to protest, demanding the return of seized materials and calling for an independent inquiry into the conduct of the probe. Legal avenues were also flagged by the state leadership; Banerjee has previously indicated that her government would consider approaching the Supreme Court to challenge aspects of the SIR process and to seek remedies for what she described as harassment of voters.

The episode adds to a series of high-profile confrontations between the Trinamool Congress and central authorities in recent months, underscoring the fraught political atmosphere in West Bengal as parties prepare for a tightly contested electoral battle.

With inputs from ANI