The presence of West Bengal Chief Secretary Nandini Chakraborty, Principal Secretary to Chief Minister Manoj Pant with Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee during Enforcement Directorate’s raid at political consultancy firm I-PAC’s Kolkata office has led to a controversy, with senior officials and political functionaries calling it “gross misconduct”.
The controversy gained steam after CM Banerjee on Friday said she “went there as chairperson of the Trinamool Congress”.
A former senior officer of the state administration said, “Police officers can go anywhere with the Chief Minister because there may be security threats or law and order aspects. But there was no need for the administration officials to rush to the spot, especially where a central agency was conducting a search operation. It is gross misconduct.”
He added, “I can remember former CMs Jyoti Basu or Buddhadev Bhattacharya never met any officers in their party office or residence.”
Another former officer also condemned the move, saying, “On February 3, 2019, CM Mamata Banerjee sat on a dharna in Kolkata’s Esplanade after a CBI raid on then Kolkata Police Commissioner and current DGP Rajeev Kumar’s home in connection with its probe into the Saradha Ponzi scheme case. That time Chief Secretary was Malay De and he refused to go to the dharna site when the Chief Minister proposed to hold a Cabinet meeting there. Later, the Cabinet meeting was held in PWD premises nearby.”
BJP state vice-president Jagannath Chattopadhyay hit out at the Banerjee-led TMC government. “In West Bengal right now, politics and governance have got mixed up completely. The CM can’t differentiate between political and non-political events. The IAS officers, including the Chief Secretary, have also been entangled in this political web. This is a pathetic situation,” he said.
CPI(M) Central Committee member Sujan Chakraborty said, “Mamata Banerjee herself said, she went there as Trinamool Congress leader. Then why too many officials and security personnel? It seems she has a threat from her own party. But how and when the Chief Secretary or Principal Secretary became part of this? Why did they go there in the first place? Why are the state government or the Centre not taking action against them? It basically proves that everything has got mixed up in West Bengal and messed up and that it is another friendly match between the two.”
The ED on Thursday conducted raids at multiple locations in Kolkata and Bidhannagar — including those linked to I-PAC — in connection with a money-laundering case linked to an alleged coal smuggling scam. The ED raided six places in Bengal and four premises in Delhi, including I-PAC’s office and residence of its director Pratik Jain. In a statement, the ED claimed that “proceeds of a coal scam amounting to crores were laundered to I-PAC through hawala channels”.
In Kolkata, the searches covered I-PAC’s office on the 11th floor of a Salt Lake building, the Loudon Street residence of Pratik Jain and the office of a trader in Posta of Burrabazar.
Soon after the raid, Mamata reached Jain’s residence and allegedly snatched some files, a laptop and documents and rushed to another location – I-PAC’s office at Salt Lake’s Sector-V.
Soon after she reached Salt Lake, Chakraborty, Pant and other officers are learnt to have rushed there.