Mamata Banerjee leads protest march against ED raids ahead of 2026 Bengal polls

Kolkata: West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Friday walked from Jadavpur, where she became MP for the first time, to her own residential neighbourhood at Hazra more, a seven-km long protest rally as a mark of protest against Enforcement Directorate raids in the I-PAC office and I-PAC director’s residence on Thursday. People assembled in the whole stretch in large numbers, and the protests bore similarities with campaigns of 2026 assembly polls with Banerjee’s self-styled protest walkathons.

Meanwhile, on Friday morning, a group of Trinamool MPs, including Derek O’brien, Mahua Moitra, among others, started protests in Delhi, in front of Union Home Minister Amit Shah’s office. They were detained there by Delhi police following the protests.

Just months ahead of the 2026 assembly polls in Bengal, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Thursday conducted marathon raids at the main office of I-PAC, a political consulting firm working for Trinamool Congress since 2019. The over ten-hour raid at the Salt Lake I-PAC office and residence of its director Prateek Jain in connection with a multi-crore coal scam were on even at the time of filing the report. Another ED team visited the residence of a businessman in Posta of Burrabazar area in north Kolkata in connection with the same case.

ED conducted raids on six premises in West Bengal and four premises in New Delhi on Thursday under sections of the PMLA. A special team of ED reportedly arrived from New Delhi and conducted the operation amid the presence of the central force.Meanwhile, Party MPs O’Brien, Satabdi Roy, Mahua Moitra, Bapi Haldar, Saket Gokhale, Pratima Mondal, Kirti Azad and Sharmila Sarkar were among the Parliamentarians, who took part in the protest and were detained after the protest by police in Delhi.

West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, condemning the alleged manhandling of the MPs, said in the X Handle post, “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. Democracy does not function on the convenience or comfort of those in power. When BJP leaders protest, they expect red carpets and special privileges. When opposition MPs raise their voices, they are dragged, detained, and humiliated. This double standard exposes the BJP’s idea of democracy – obedience, not dissent. Let it be clear: respect is mutual. You respect us, we respect you. You drag us on the road, and we will drag you back to the constitutional idea of tolerance, dissent, and democratic morality. This is our India. We are citizens by right, not at the mercy of a chair, a badge, or a position of power. No government, no party, and no Home Minister gets to decide who deserves dignity in a democracy.”