If the ED can demonstrate that the file taken by Mamata from the raid site is materially significant to an ongoing investigation, she herself could face swift legal action. Recent high-profile cases underline this possibility.
The phrase “What Bengal thinks today, India thinks tomorrow” is widely attributed to Indian leader Gopal Krishna Gokhale, but he actually said, “What educated Indians think today, the rest of India thinks tomorrow” at the 1905 Benares Congress, highlighting Bengal’s intellectual and progressive leadership, though the modified, popularized quote became a lasting motto.
The Enforcement Directorate (ED)’s searches on January 8, in Kolkata, at locations linked to the Indian Political Action Committee (I-PAC), are a development set to be repeated in the run-up to the West Bengal Assembly election. I-PAC is a political consultancy firm that spearheaded the ruling Trinamool Congress (TMC)’s election campaign in 2021. The ED said the searches were part of an ongoing money laundering investigation, unrelated to the election, and aimed at tracing the proceeds of the crime. The TMC held protests across the State soon after. Even as the raids were on, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee went to the I-PAC office and accused the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led central government of using central agencies for political vendetta. She called the raids an “attack on democracy”, and accused the ED of attempting to seize the TMC’s internal political strategy, data and digital material ahead of the election.
The ED claims its officials were obstructed and that documents were removed from the premises, and has approached the Calcutta High Court. This is not the first time that central agencies — the ED, the Central Bureau of Investigation and the IT Department — have confronted State governments run by Opposition parties. A pattern is visible across time and space that makes Mamata’s claims notable, and the ED’s assertion that its actions are unlinked to politics, feeble.
Regardless of the merits of the case, the ED’s action and its timing bring into the spotlight several issues related to the fairness and integrity of the electoral process, Centre-State relations, and election funding. Incumbents at the Centre and in the States enjoy certain advantages in any election, but the vigilance and fairness of the Election Commission of India, the judiciary, the media and the IT Department could level the playing field to some extent. Partisan behaviour, institutional shortcomings and the weaponisation of state power by incumbents are factors that can render such checks and balances ineffective or impossible. ED raids that tangentially target the TMC follow a pattern of the incumbent at the Centre using state power to corner a party that runs the State government. It is worth recalling that the IT department froze all bank accounts of the principal Opposition party, the Congress, during the 2024 general election. The very fact that agencies and institutions tend to be hyperactive against Opposition governments and parties, and never against the BJP or its associates, is itself revealing. The BJP appears willing to stretch all rules of the game to win in West Bengal, but it should also consider what India might be losing in that pursuit: the confidence of the people in the integrity of state institutions.
Hitting the streets to protest the Enforcement Directorate’s raids on the I-PAC office and its founder’s home, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee justified her decision to intervene during the raids by saying that attempts were being made to steal her party’s internal strategy.
This came a day after the Chief Minister entered the residence of I-PAC co-founder Pratik Jain at Loudon Street and then the I-PAC office in Salt Lake while the ED raids were going on. The Central agency claimed that Mamata Banerjee and her aides “forcibly removed physical documents and electronic evidences”. I-PAC has provided political consultancy to the Trinamool Congress since 2021.
Mamata accuses Central agencies of functioning as political tools of the BJP. “All agencies have been captured,” she said. The BJP had also “forcibly captured” power in several States, she claimed.
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s dramatic intervention at an Enforcement Directorate raid site has triggered a sharp legal debate, with experts saying the central agency still holds a strong legal advantage despite a police case being filed against its officers. The ED is protected under section 67 of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, or PMLA, which grants wide powers to investigators during searches and seizures.
According to legal observers, unless the West Bengal Police can conclusively establish that ED officers acted for personal benefit and that the action amounted to theft of documents rather than lawful seizure for investigation, it would be extremely difficult to classify the ED’s actions as a criminal offence. Arresting ED officials remains highly unlikely under the current legal framework.
At the same time, the legal risk is not entirely one-sided. Experts note that if the ED can demonstrate that the file taken by the Chief Minister from the raid site is materially significant to an ongoing investigation, Banerjee herself could face swift legal action. Recent high-profile cases underline this possibility. Former Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and former deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia were arrested by the ED after the agency argued that their actions had a direct bearing on its probes.
Any Chief Minister does not enjoy any special constitutional immunity outside the legislature. Mamata, a political leader with lot of experience and expertise, is certainly aware of the constitutional realities. She wants to turn the table on her side. Her voters have reposed faith in her fighting spirit and she has successfully foiled the attempts made by the party in power in Delhi. Now, the matter will be heard in Supreme Court and also in the court of Bengal Voters. We have to watch; what Bengal thinks today.
