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The political standoff between the Trinamool Congress and the Centre reached a fever pitch on Friday as Mamata Banerjee took to the streets of Kolkata to lead a protest against the Enforcement Directorate (ED). This comes just a day after the agency raided the offices of I-PAC, the consultancy firm behind the TMC’s election strategy. The Chief Minister’s fury wasn’t just about the raid itself, but also the "shameful" treatment of her MPs in Delhi, who were dragged away and detained by police while trying to protest outside Amit Shah’s residence.

 

Banerjee was all over social media, criticising the Delhi Police for their actions, terming them “arrogance in uniforms,” and warning the Bharatiya Janata Party members that “India is not their private property.” The arrest of opposition party members like Mahua Moitra and Derek O'Brien was a clear case, she said, where double standards were being applied: “You want a red carpet rolled out for your protest marches. Our voices are to be humiliated. You do not respect us. We’ll treat you with the same. You drag us to the road. We’ll drag you back to the constitutional ideal of tolerance,” she said.

I strongly condemn the shameful and unacceptable treatment meted out to our Members of Parliament. Dragging elected representatives on the streets for exercising their democratic right to protest outside the Home Minister’s office is not law enforcement - it is arrogance in…

— Mamata Banerjee (@MamataOfficial) January 9, 2026

However, the ED has fired back with a serious allegation of its own. In an official statement, the agency claimed that the Chief Minister personally interfered with their search at the residence of I-PAC director Pratik Jain. According to the ED, the operation was going smoothly until Banerjee arrived with a large contingent of state police and allegedly made off with "key evidence," including electronic devices and physical documents.

 

This face-off between an incumbent Chief Minister and a major government agency has escalated a legal raid into an actual battle for the constitution itself. Despite Banerjee claiming that she and her party are fighting for the protection of their strategic information against “political theft,” she, instead, has been labelled as an obstructionist to attain justice through the ED. As the TMC is marching from Jadavpur to Hazra, it is apparent that the state is on the cusp of a chaotic political environment as it realises that Banerjee and Bengal are fighting their battle for “dignity and dissent.”

 

Also read: Mamata files complaint against ED, CRPF after raids at I-PAC