West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Friday led a protest march in Kolkata against the Enforcement Directorate’s (ED) raids on the residence and offices of Indian Political Action Committee (I-PAC) chief Pratik Jain. The rally saw the participation of senior Trinamool Congress (TMC) leaders, ministers, MPs, MLAs and a large number of party supporters.
The protest march began from the 8B Bus Stand area and moved towards Hazra More, with demonstrators raising slogans against the BJP-led central government. Banerjee accused the Centre of misusing central agencies to target political opponents ahead of the 2026 West Bengal Assembly elections.
Videos of the protest have surfaced on social media, showing Banerjee at the forefront of the march, flanked by senior party leaders and supporters.
The rally followed Banerjee’s dramatic visit on Thursday to Pratik Jain’s Loudon Street residence in south Kolkata during an ongoing ED search. At the time, the TMC chief alleged that the agency was attempting to seize the party’s internal documents, hard disks and confidential organisational data that were unrelated to any financial probe.
Earlier in the day, Banerjee strongly criticised the BJP and the Centre after several TMC MPs, including Mahua Moitra and Derek O’Brien, were detained while protesting outside Union Home Minister Amit Shah’s office in New Delhi against the ED raids.
Calling the action “arrogance in uniform”, Banerjee wrote on X, “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 uniform. This is a democracy, not the BJP’s private property.”
Several TMC MPs were reportedly forcefully removed by Delhi Police during the protest, with visuals showing lawmakers being dragged and carried away, further escalating tensions between the TMC and the Centre.