West Bengal: Mamata Banerjee targets ED during I- PAC raid

Bharat could not solve the riddle behind Mamata Banerjee’s desperate rush to barge into the ED’s investigation sites at the I-PAC office in Salt Lake, Kolkata, and Pratik Jain’s residence on London Street, snatching from ED officials whatever they had seized.

Viewers, too, felt no less unsettled while beholding Mamata Banerjee’s visibly nervous demeanour, seemingly quivering in fear, paying no heed to the ultra-excited media persons firing questions at her from all sides, “Didi ki bolben?”, as she walked almost in a trance through the residential complex of I-PAC director Pratik Jain. After emerging from Jain’s house, clutching a green file tightly against her chest, she began lashing out at Home Minister Amit Shah in a reproving tone, calling him “nasty”, “naughty”, before the media, all the while continuing to tremble with anxiety.

The widespread media speculation that the West Bengal Chief Minister got her own hands dirty in order to save family members allegedly involved in the coal scam appears to have little basis. A seasoned, popular, and despotic politician like Mamata Banerjee could easily have instructed her police force to illegally detain the ED officials at the investigation site, after which the State Police themselves could have tampered with any evidence the ED was looking for. It may be recalled that the Kolkata Police had already made such an “impossible” act possible by detaining CBI officials on February 3, 2019, when the agency arrived at the doorstep of the then Commissioner of Kolkata Police, Rajiv Kumar, IPS, to interrogate him in connection with the Saradha Chit Fund scam. What, then, necessitated Mamata Banerjee’s personal appearance to intimidate the ED, when she could have replayed the February 2019 script in January 2026 as well, this time at Pratik Jain’s residence?

When the CBI was investigating the Saradha Chit Fund scam, Mamata Banerjee’s own integrity was under scrutiny, as Saradha owner Sudipta Sen had allegedly purchased some puerile, juvenile paintings by her for nearly Rs 2 crore. Yet, her police force handled that precarious situation on her behalf and successfully forced the CBI to retreat. Such antecedents suggest that Mamata Banerjee’s personal presence at Pratik Jain’s premises is likely to have a significance that goes beyond merely protecting family members.

Playing victim card

A masterclass in negative politics, she understands all too well that a corruption charge against any member of her family before the upcoming Assembly election would provide her with the political stimulus to play the victim. She would readily seize it as an opportunity to rejuvenate her political entity, especially at a time when West Bengal has already developed a deep anti-incumbency sentiment. It must also be noted that Mamata Banerjee is not Arvind Kejriwal, who rose to power on an explicit anti-corruption plank; she never took any such anti-corruption oath.

The model of Mamata Banerjee’s politics appears to have taken a shortcut: instead of building her own party’s, she allegedly turned the State’s police and administration into functional equivalents of party cadres, while keeping unorganised TMC hoodlums free to run their syndicate businesses.

This age-old feudal model of administration opened a single approval window for the babus of Bengal, thereby easing their operational domain—unlike during the Left Front regime, when even peons, as members of trade union coordination committees, often dominated officers. Mamata Banerjee empowered the police and the administration with complete freedom to take decisions, even by stepping outside the rulebook when deemed necessary, and effectively eliminated the swagger of trade unions. The Chief Minister herself stood as the protector of this realm, of which she was the supremo.

This decision-making upper hand granted to the bureaucracy was apparently reciprocated by it through delivering favourable electoral outcomes for the TMC by allegedly rigging both polling and counting. Several court proceedings involving BDOs and SDOs, who faced judicial reprimands from judges of the Calcutta High Court following the 2023 panchayat elections for deliberate manipulation at various stages of the electoral process, are now in the public domain.

Thus, the TMC’s Achilles’ heel appears to lie within the bureaucratic top brass of West Bengal rather than the ministerial periphery. Had Mamata Banerjee arrived at the spot accompanied by her party supporters and her own Z-category security personnel to intimidate the ED, it could have been construed as an attempt to protect a family member or party functionaries, much like when she mobbed the CBI office at Nizam Palace, Kolkata, in 2021 on the day four of her cabinet ministers were arrested. However, her arrival at Pratik Jain’s residence alongside the Director General of Police, the Commissioner of Police (Kolkata), and the Chief Secretary indicated that Mamata Banerjee went there in her capacity as Chief Minister. Conversely, the presence of the CS–DGP–CP trio merely to safeguard Abhishek Banerjee, whose relevant identity is that of a Member of Parliament, appears far-fetched, even if he happens to be Mamata Banerjee’s nephew. As the ED was conducting raids at the premises in connection with a money-laundering probe related to coal smuggling in West Bengal, it is plausible that the agency may have recovered incriminating documents implicating senior police officials from I-PAC’s premises. That possibility alone seems to explain the presence of the CS–DGP–CP high-powered triangle accompanying Mamata Banerjee in what appeared to be an attempt to intimidate the ED.

While Mamata Banerjee alleged that the ED had targeted the I-PAC office to steal TMC party papers—its strategic details, candidate lists, and the like—on behalf of the BJP, the presence of the CS–DGP–CP trio alongside her did not support that claim. On the contrary, the ED’s press release stated that the agency had visited the premises to investigate the coal-smuggling case under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA). The presence of the CS–DGP–CP power triangle accompanying the West Bengal Chief Minister suggested that the ED’s version was more credible than the Chief Minister’s allegation. The involvement of senior State Government officials in a PMLA investigation is consistent with constitutional protocol, whereas their presence to thwart an alleged and frivolous political theft would be incongruous. The simultaneous presence of both ED officials and senior West Bengal government officials at the I-PAC premises appeared to corroborate the seriousness of a coal-scam probe in which very high-profile police officers were allegedly involved. In contrast, Mamata Banerjee’s allegation seemed aimed at diverting public attention toward an imagined theft of TMC party documents. While viewers perceived it as Mamata Banerjee leading the charge alongside top Government of West Bengal officials, it may well have been the reverse—State officials drawing Mamata Banerjee along as a shield and camouflage for themselves.

It has been widely reported that the West Bengal coal-smuggling case allegedly involves high-profile police officers of the State, including several top-ranking IPS officers as well as many from the WBPS. While the CBI had already filed its final chargesheet in the case in December 2024, accusing 50 individuals and completing the framing of charges against all except one, Vinay Mishra, who is currently a fugitive, the ED appears to be in the final stages of its investigation into money laundering linked to the same case. Pratik Jain’s premises allegedly contained documents incriminating enough to frame certain high-profile figures within West Bengal’s power corridor, which reportedly unnerved the bureaucratic establishment and prompted them to draw Mamata Banerjee towards the site of “action.”

While Mamata Banerjee has historically relied on the police and the administration for the enforcement and implementation of her political agenda, she outsourced the conception, design, development, and micromanagement of electoral strategy, promotions, and public communication to private entities such as I-PAC. Removing I-PAC from the equation would leave the TMC deprived of its data-driven strategic and communication backbone. However, bringing corruption charges against the West Bengal babus (bureaucratic elite) would dismantle the party’s otherwise infallible poll-winning machinery.

TMC’s Achilles’ heel appears to lie within the bureaucratic top brass of West Bengal rather than the ministerial periphery.

The ED’s probe into the coal-smuggling case, arising from CBI Kolkata FIR No. RC0102020A0022 dated 27.11.2020 against Shri Anup Majee and others, and ED’s ECIR No. 17/HIU/2020 dated 28.11.2020, appears to implicate several members of West Bengal’s bureaucratic top brass. It has been reported in considerable detail by both national and Bengali media that money laundering linked to the coal-smuggling case was carried out through a well-coordinated and harmonious nexus involving coal mafia Anup Majee and his criminal operations, sections of the West Bengal Police, Superintendents of Police of the concerned districts, officials of Eastern Coalfields Limited (ECL), the CISF, railway officials, and, last but not least, political beneficiaries such as TMC leaders and public representatives. Consequently, if senior bureaucrats are slapped with corruption charges in the coal-smuggling case before the 2026 elections, Mamata Banerjee’s 15-year-long regime can logically be expected to collapse like a house of cards.

However loyal they may be to Mamata Banerjee, going to jail on corruption charges would perhaps be the last thing acceptable to the Bengal babus, who had steadfastly stood behind her with unwavering faith that she would act as their rescuer under any circumstances. By sitting in a dharna to shield the Kolkata Police Commissioner from the CBI’s grip in February 2019, Mamata Banerjee sent a loud and clear message that she was the all-weather messiah of the Bengal bureaucracy. An ED probe at Pratik Jain’s premises was perhaps unmasking the babus in their entirety, and preventing this seemingly necessitated the presence of the State Police at the venue to intimidate the ED officials. However, in doing so, the DGP, the Chief Secretary, and the Kolkata Police Commissioner themselves required the protection of their all-weather messiah, as they could not have justified, on their own, a deliberate act of intimidation during an ED raid on a private corporate entity.

Intimidating the ED

In the case of the CBI raid on Rajiv Kumar’s residence, the Kolkata Police could obstruct the CBI in solidarity with the State’s own top cop. In the case of the I-PAC premises, however, they had no comparable basis for such solidarity and, therefore, may have felt compelled to draw Mamata Banerjee into the loop and ask her to accompany them. The Mamata-led Government of West Bengal’s intimidation of the ED appears to be a lose–lose situation for both Mamata Banerjee and the Bengal bureaucracy. Not only could Mamata Banerjee and the officials accompanying her face criminal charges for intimidating the ED at Pratik Jain’s premises, but they also appear to have failed in their objective of shielding police officers tainted by the coal scam by forcibly taking seized documents from the agency. On the contrary, the document-snatching incident itself potentially provides the ED with sufficient grounds to indict all concerned, even if the agency does not possess every related document.