West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Friday spearheaded a protest march in Kolkata opposing the Enforcement Directorate’s search operations at the residence and offices of Indian Political Action Committee (I-PAC) chief Pratik Jain. The demonstration saw the participation of senior Trinamool Congress leaders, ministers, MPs, MLAs and a large number of party supporters.

The march began from the 8B Bus Stand area and moved towards Hazra More, with protesters raising slogans against the BJP-led central government. Banerjee accused the Centre of deploying central probe agencies as tools for political vendetta, particularly with the 2026 West Bengal Assembly elections approaching.

The protest followed Banerjee’s high-profile visit a day earlier to Pratik Jain’s Loudon Street residence while ED officials were conducting searches. The TMC supremo alleged that the agency was attempting to seize the party’s internal documents, hard disks and confidential organisational material that had no connection with any financial investigation.

Tensions further escalated after several TMC MPs were detained in New Delhi while protesting outside Union Home Minister Amit Shah’s office over the ED action. Reacting strongly, Banerjee condemned the police action against her party colleagues, calling it “arrogance in uniform” and asserting that elected representatives were being punished for exercising their democratic right to protest.

The Trinamool Congress has maintained that the ED raids and subsequent actions against its leaders are politically motivated, while continuing to protest what it describes as the misuse of investigative agencies by the Centre.