Kolkata: Major drama took place in Kolkata on Thursday after Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee rushed to Pratik Jain’s residence at Loudon street in south Kolkata and then I-PAC’s office in Salt Lake sector 5 during Enforcement Directorate (ED0’s raid at both the places.
According to Mamata, the raid was conducted to seize internal documents and hard disks containing information about Trinamool Congress (TMC) ahead of the Assembly election.
According to the central agency, the raids were being conducted at 10 places, six in Kolkata and four in New Delhi in connection to the coal pilferage scam.
After visiting Jain’s house, Mamata was seen carrying a green fat file along with a laptop and a mobile phone.
Talking to the media, Mamata alleged that the ED action was ‘politically motivated’ and was at the behest of Union Home Minister Amit Shah to ‘steal files’ containing information about TMC.
“What will happen if I raid the party office of BJP? Is it the duty of Home Minister Amit Shah and ED to take away my party’s documents? On one side in the name of SIR 54 lakhs names have been deleted. They have raided the residence of our IT chief. They were confiscating my party’s documents and hard disks, which have details about our candidates for the assembly polls. I have brought those back,” said Mamata while coming out of Jain’s residence.
From Jain’s residence, the West Bengal Chief Minister visited I-Pac’s office and claimed that the saffron camp failed to fight politically and democratically, the central agency is trying to ‘loot’ internal documents of TMC.
“I am sorry Mr. Prime Minister, please control your Home Minister. By using agencies to steal our poll plan your seat will get reduced to zero. This is not law enforcement, this is political vendetta. The home minister is behaving like the nastiest home minister. There is a limit to everything. The ED brought a forensic team at 6 am when hardly any people were there in the I-PAC office and had transferred several documents,” further claimed Mamata.
Notably, the central agency had moved the Calcutta High Court mentioning interference of the Chief Minister and Police Commissioner. The central agency also made it clear that this was not a raid on any particular political party.
“Proceedings were being conducted in a peaceful and professional manner, till the arrival of West Bengal Chief Minister. Ms. Mamata Banerjee along with a large number of police officials. Ms. Banerjee entered the residential premises of Prateek Jain, and took away key evidence including physical documents and electronic devices,” read the press statement issued by the ED.
Leader of Opposition Suvendu Adhikari termed Chief Minister’s visit during ED raid as ‘unconstitutional’.
Incidentally, this is not the first time that Mamata interfered during a central agency's probe. In 2019 when CBI had raided the Loudon street house of the then police commissioner Rajeev Kumar, Mamata had initially rushed to the spot and then staged an agitation at Dharmatala in central Kolkata.
In 2021, Mamata staged a sit-in-demonstration outside CBI’s Nizam Palace office protesting the arrest of TMC leaders and ministers Firhad Hakim, Sovan Chatterjee, Madan Mitra and Late Subrata Mukherjee.
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Pratik Jain engineer-turned-analyst
Pratik Jain, a former engineer is a co-founder of political strategist firm I-PAC.
Jain along with Vinesh Chandel and Rishi Raj Singh formed I-PAC in 2015. After political strategist Prashant Kishor left I-PAC, Jain became the head of the firm in Bengal and also heads the IT cell and started taking care of Trinamool Congress (TMC).
Jain got an engineering degree in metallurgical engineering and materials science from the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay (IIT-B) and alongside studies he did an internship in Axis Mutual Fund which gave him good exposure to the field.
In 2012 Jain joined Deloitte as an analyst. He later became member of a non-profit organization Citizens for Accountable Governance and eventually formed I-PAC.
Jain stays in Loudon street in southern part of Kolkata and I-PAC’s office is in Salt Lake Sector 5.
