New Delhi: Several Trinamool Congress MPs were on Friday detained while staging a protest outside the Home Ministry’s office here against alleged misuse of probe agencies by the Centre.
TMC leaders were forcefully evicted from the spot by Delhi Police, with MPs being dragged and physically carried away by police personnel.
The protest came a day after the Enforcement Directorate (ED) carried out raids at the office of political consultancy I-PAC and the residence of its chief.
A police officer said TMC MPs Derek O’Brien and Mahua Moitra, along with other party leaders, were detained and taken to Parliament Street Police Station.
Police said they were detained as protests are not permitted outside the Home Ministry’s office due to prohibitory orders and security concerns.
Holding placards and raising slogans alleging misuse of the ED, the eight MPs of the TMC tried to enter Kartavya Bhavan, which houses the Home Ministry.
The MPs were stopped from entering the building, after which they staged a protest at the gate. Later, they were forcefully evicted from the protest spot by Delhi Police.
Party MPs O’Brien, Satabdi Roy, Mahua Moitra, Bapi Haldar, Saket Gokhale, Pratima Mondal, Kirti Azad, and Sharmila Sarkar were among those who took part in the protest.
TMC leaders shared images of the MPs being forcefully removed from the site by Delhi Police, and slammed the Union government over it.
“What kind of arrogance is this, Amit Shah? Are you now using your Delhi Police to assault elected representatives just to crush democracy? Is this how dissent is silenced in your India?” the TMC charged.
“Admit it, you are rattled! First, the shameless misuse of the ED. Now, an attack on the peaceful dharna of our eight MPs. This desperation exposes your fear. You may try to choke democracy, but Bengal will not be cowed. Shame on you and your police!” TMC said.
Talking to media at the Parliament Street Police station, Moitra accused the government of using the ED to “steal” their party’s election strategy by raiding their political consultant.
“Never before in a democracy has, government made ED its agent to steal information and election strategy from our political consultant. They are claiming there was a 7-10-year-old scam. You could not probe in all these days, now you are remembering it on the eve of the election. Mamata Banerjee went to the place and took away the election strategy; she’s showing how to fight the BJP. People of Bengal will teach them a lesson,” Moitra said.
“We were holding a peaceful protest, you have seen how they dragged us. But we are tough. This is our democratic right, they pulled us here,” she said.
Azad also slammed the Delhi Police action.
“We were holding a peaceful protest against the unconstitutional raid of ED. Amit Shah wanted to steal our election strategy, names of candidates,” he charged.
“We want to know why the ED attacks only the opposition,” he said, while adding that Narayan Rane, Ajit Pawar, and Himanta Biswa Sarma were branded as corrupt by ruling leaders but no action was taken against them
In a post on X, Gokhale said, “After the failure of SIR, the BJP has resorted to its old tactic of using pliant Central Agencies”.
“Today, we eight MPs of TMC were peacefully protesting outside Amit Shah’s office in Delhi. We were dragged, assaulted, and forcibly arrested. This is how scared Amit Shah is – pulling MPs by their hair and dragging them on the floor,” he said, sharing a video of the MPs being evicted by police.
TMC national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee charged on X, “Democracy is punished. Criminals are rewarded. Agencies are weaponised. Elections are manipulated”.
“Jail the protesters. Bail the rapists. This is the BJP’s version of New India. Even if the rest of the country is forced to surrender, Bengal will resist. We will fight you tooth and nail and defeat you, no matter how much force you unleash,” he said.
The police said the MPs would be released shortly.
The TMC MPs had started their protest around 8.40 am, and were detained around 10 am. The MPs continued to be in detention at the time of filing this report.
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Thursday accused the ED of attempting to seize the Trinamool Congress’ internal data and election strategy during searches at the residence of I-PAC chief Pratik Jain and the organisation’s office in Kolkata.
Banerjee had termed the raids “political vendetta” and alleged misuse of central agencies to intimidate opposition parties.
TMC leaders have maintained that I-PAC, which provides political consultancy services to the party and manages its IT and media operations, was being targeted to gain access to sensitive internal documents. The party has announced protests against the ED action both in West Bengal and at the national level.
