West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has always come up as a combative leader who has always taken on the Bharatiya Janata Party-led Central government head on. She has also withstood the ‘saffron surge’ singlehandedly when it has already gripped her neighbourhood like Odisha, Bihar and Assam.
That West Bengal is the prime target for the BJP in 2026 is well known. More than anyone else, Banerjee herself knows it very well. She uses every trick in the trade to counter the BJP by creating strong, powerful and appealing optics, like she “injured” her foot during the 2021 election campaign and went around with the plastered limb. That was a well-planned strategy, which did help her gain sympathy.
When the Enforcement Directorate team raided the I-PAC office in Kolkata, in an unprecedented move, Banerjee barged into the office premises and reportedly snatched away whatever record the ED officials had seized by then. During her “counter raid”, she was accompanied by the Director General of Police, West Bengal, Chief Secretary and the Commissioner of Police Kolkata. This was too much for the ED officials to resist and they apparently handed over everything to the combative Chief Minister.
The pictures of the Chief Minister carrying a bunch of files in her hand, while walking out of the I-PAC office, were circulated across the mainstream and social media within no time. The ED has approached the Supreme Court of India and so has the West Bengal government.
The question is that why should a Chief Minister feel so concerned and agitated over the ED raid on the office premises of a poll management agency? I-PAC does not manage the Trinamool Congress poll campaign alone. I-PAC is the premier election management agency in the country founded by eminent political strategist Prashant Kishor. He left the company in 2021 after the West Bengal elections and has since launched his own political outfit, Jan Suraj, which is Bihar specific. It contested the last Assembly elections but drew a blank.
Besides being the ace election management agency, the I-PAC is in possession of granular data of the electorate wherever it has worked. The I-PAC has been working with Banerjee’s Trinamool Congress for a long time. In 2021 when everyone started believing that the BJP might form the government in West Bengal replacing the TMC, Kishor went on record that he would give up political strategising if the BJP got three figure seats. It was stuck at 77 only. That is the deep insight the I-PAC has about the state of affairs in West Bengal.
Banerjee apprehends and alleges publicly that the ED wanted to take the important data at the behest of the BJP, suggesting that the data may eventually land with the saffron party. However, the BJP in itself is no less in the game of political strategy and is in control of more granular data than anyone else. That the ED would merely go to collect the data does not sound very appealing.
Also read: ED moves SC against CM Mamta over 'interference' in I-PAC probe
What actually might have caused concern to Banerjee is the way the I-PAC gets paid. Kishor used to claim that he did not charge anything from the political parties he campaigned for. But that would sound too surreal given the expenses incurred by the I-PAC with a huge number of people working on the ground collecting data and other paraphernalia. It is no secret that the I-PAC charges huge fee for campaigning. After all, Kishor has made all that fortune he boasts of from election management only.
The ED has been maintaining that the raid on the I-PAC office and residential premises of its CEO Pratik Jain was related to the multi-crore coal scam that the agency is probing. There is an apprehension that the ED wanted to find out the link and money trail related to the coal scam, possibly suspecting the I-PAC of having been the beneficiary of the scam money. This would be too difficult for anyone to defend. In fact, the amount of money the I-PAC charges from political parties will be difficult for them to explain.
Banerjee’s unprecedented “counter raid” in the ED’s raid has raised eyebrows. That also appears to be the reason for not many of the ‘INDIA bloc’ members coming out in her support. Most of the important INDIA bloc members like the Congress have maintained complete silence on the matter. Otherwise, the Congress takes no time to comment on such matters, which suggest misuse of the ED.
The matter is now pending in the Supreme Court with the ED seeking an FIR against the Chief Minister. This has given rise to an unprecedented and an awkward situation where an elected Chief Minister is accused of preventing the Central agency officials from doing their job.
Banerjee has, so far, maintained a clean and spotless image as a person of high integrity. Walking out with a bunch of files that she allegedly took away from the ED’s possession has not done any good to her. It is unbecoming of a Chief Minister to act like that. This has rather raised questions about her motives and interests for acting in such an extreme manner. She may have tried to project herself as a combative leader from the Opposition, but in the process she ended up being seen somewhat panic stricken. And that is not good optics for her.
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