ED raids on I-PAC have only strengthened TMC and Mamata Banerjee

This observation regarding the Enforcement Directorate (ED) was made by no less than the Supreme Court of India — by a bench of then-Chief Justice of India B R Gavai and Justice K Vinod Chandran on July 21, 2025. Numerous political parties have been saying the same thing for more than 10 years, alleging that the Narendra Modi government has been using the ED as a tool of political vendetta against the Opposition.

Let me first state some facts about India’s so-called premier federal financial crimes investigation agency. This comes from an answer given by the Finance Ministry in the Rajya Sabha to a question asked by me in July 2025. In the 10-year period between 2015 and 2025, the ED registered 5,892 cases for investigation, of which only 1,398 (24 per cent) ever made it to court. And of these 5,892 cases, trials had begun in only 300 (5 per cent). How efficient is an investigation agency that brings only five out of 100 cases registered by it to trial?

On January 8, the ED suddenly conducted raids on the offices of the political consultancy I-PAC in Kolkata and at the residence of its director, Pratik Jain. It is a well-known fact that IPAC has been retained by the All India Trinamool Congress (TMC) since 2019. Therefore, the timing of the ED’s action — just a couple of months before the West Bengal Assembly elections — is extremely suspicious.

The ED has claimed that the raids were part of an investigation into an alleged coal scam case registered in 2020. The big question is: Why did the ED suddenly wake up just before the West Bengal elections to conduct raids on the TMC’s political consultancy in a five-year-old case?

This is precisely why West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee categorically accused the ED of trying to access confidential documents and data related to the TMC’s election campaign in the garb of these raids on I-PAC. When the Supreme Court itself has cast aspersions on the independence of the ED, it is natural that the agency is seen as being a political tool of the BJP. Therefore, as the chairperson of the TMC, Banerjee did her duty and protected our party’s electoral strategy by ensuring that some of our files do not end up in the hands of the BJP through the ED.

The ED has an infamous reputation for “selective leaks”. In numerous cases involving Opposition leaders, details of the ED’s “confidential” chargesheets have been loudly broadcast on TV channels when the narrative suits the BJP. In today’s media atmosphere, selectively planted stories from the government and agencies are duly reported by the media while attributing it to mysterious “sources”. The ED also prefers to conduct its trials and “convict” opposition leaders in the studios-turned-courts of our TV media. In actual courts, the story is quite different. Out of the 5,892 cases filed by the ED in 10 years, only eight (0.14 per cent) have resulted in a conviction.

The mandate of the ED, therefore, has changed from being a financial crimes prosecution agency. Its sole purpose seems to be locking up opposition leaders under the draconian Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) or using its powers to blackmail and intimidate politicians who oppose the BJP.

Banerjee is a three-term Chief Minister of West Bengal who is now going into elections with a popularity rating that most politicians would be envious of. For the past 10 years, the BJP has been desperately trying to increase its footprint in West Bengal. And in 2021, it managed to do that when Congress and the CPI(M) were reduced to zero seats in the West Bengal Assembly. However, it continues to lose against the combined might and popularity of Mamata and Abhishek Banerjee.

For the 2026 West Bengal Assembly elections, the BJP was counting on the Election Commission’s Special Intensive Revision (SIR) as its saviour. When that appeared to fail, the BJP has now reverted to its tried-and-tested technique of using central agencies for political battles, as we saw this week.

The BJP has accepted that it cannot defeat Banerjee electorally. What it has now learnt this week is that political vendetta only makes her stronger. And more importantly, what the entire country has realised this week is that she is the only leader who knows how to bring the BJP to its knees.

By deploying its devious tactics, the BJP has handed over the 2026 Bengal election to the TMC and Mamata Banerjee on a platter. And as another Gokhale said 125 years ago: “What Bengal thinks today, India thinks tomorrow.” The writer is a Member of Parliament in the Rajya Sabha representing West Bengal and the national spokesperson of the All India Trinamool Congress