As per officials, Enforcement Directorate Director Rahul Naveen will visit Kolkata on Thursday. It is being termed as a routine visit to Kolkata during which he will also be meeting with the team members who conducted raids at the office of the political consultancy firm I-PAC and the residence of its director Pratik Jain on January 8.
In a dramatic escalation of the standoff between the Trinamool Congress and the Centre, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee arrived to personally confront an ongoing ED raid. Calling the agency's actions a "crime" and a "murder of democracy," the Chief Minister spent 45 minutes at the scene while investigators were still inside.
The raids, which targeted the office of the TMC’s election strategy firm and the residence of its head, Pratik Jain, began around 6:00 AM. Mamata alleged that since the office was mostly empty at that hour, ED officials essentially "looted" the premises. "They have taken all the documents, laptops, and iPhones from an empty office," she told reporters, framing the move as a desperate attempt by the Bharatiya Janata Party to steal the TMC's internal election strategies and candidate lists after failing to fight them politically.
Directly addressing the Prime Minister, she warned, "Control your Home Minister. You will be mistaken if you think my courtesy is a weakness." Before reaching the I-PAC office, the Chief Minister visited Jain’s home. She was later seen leaving with a green file, claiming she had managed to secure some key party documents before they could be seized.
The battle has already moved to the Supreme Court, where the tone was equally sharp. The ED accused the Chief Minister and senior state police of a "direct act of theft," alleging that the state administration unlawfully seized documents back from federal investigators during the raid. The agency warned that such interference sets a dangerous precedent for constitutional institutions.
Meanwhile, the Supreme Court has also treated the conflict with utmost seriousness. A bench headed by Justices Prashant Kumar Mishra and Vipul M Pancholi recently passed an interim decision, observing that "allegations concerning State interference are serious and cast a constitutional shadow." Justice Mishra commented: "It is no isolated instance and deserves careful examination to ensure that the rule of law is not threatened and that the Central agencies are not coerced into functioning under State pressure."
Also read: SC flags ‘serious issues’ in ED–I-PAC search row, stays FIRs
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