Saturday, 10 January 2026
Saturday, 10 January 2026
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Friday led a protest march in south Kolkata against the Enforcement Directorate’s searches linked to political consultancy firm I-PAC, as her TMC mounted a show of street strength ahead of the 2026 assembly polls.
As she walked from the 8B Bus Stand area towards Hazra More, Banerjee was flanked by senior ministers, MPs, MLAs and party functionaries, with sloganeering crowds accusing the BJP-led Centre of “misusing central agencies for political vendetta”.
The massive rally comes a day after the TMC supremo’s dramatic appearance at I-PAC chief Pratik Jain’s Loudon Street residence during an ED raid, an episode that has escalated into a full-blown Centre-state confrontation.
The march, however, unfolded with a cultural credence unmistakably Bengali.
Party workers lustily sang Pratul Mukhopadhyay’s iconic anthem ‘Ami Banglay Gaan Gai’, while women blew conch shells, lending the protest the texture of a street festival layered with political defiance.
Clad in her trademark white cotton sari, shawl and slippers, Banerjee walked steadily at the head of the procession, occasionally pausing to wave at onlookers lining both sides of the road, many filming the moment on their phones.
Adding both star power and organisational heft to the rally were actor-politicians Dev, a sitting Lok Sabha MP, and Soham Chakraborty, along with other familiar faces from the Bengali film and television industry, who now double as party representatives. Their presence drew cheers and whistles, blurring the line between cinema and politics that the TMC has increasingly embraced.
TMC leaders said the march was the first in a series of statewide agitations planned by the TMC, signalling that Banerjee intends to take the political battle out of conference rooms and courtrooms and back onto the streets – a terrain she knows best, and where her politics, steeped in spectacle and symbolism, finds its most potent expression.
The chief minister had alleged that the agency was attempting to seize the Trinamool Congress’ internal documents, hard disks and confidential organisational data unrelated to any financial investigation.
Mamata on Friday condemned the treatment meted out to party MPs during a protest outside the Home Ministry's office in Delhi, calling it “shameful and unacceptable” and an “assault” on democratic rights.
Several Trinamool Congress MPs were on Friday detained while staging protests against alleged misuse of probe agencies by the Centre.
In a post on X, Mamata said that “dragging elected representatives on the streets for exercising their democratic right to protest… is not law enforcement – it is arrogance in uniform,” asserting that India is “a democracy, not the BJP’s private property.” Stressing that democracy does not operate on the “convenience or comfort of those in power”, the CM accused the BJP of following a double standard, claiming that while its leaders expect “red carpets and special privileges” during protests, opposition MPs are “dragged, detained, and humiliated” for raising their voice.
“This double standard exposes the BJP’s idea of democracy — obedience, not dissent,” she said.
Asserting that respect between institutions and political actors must be mutual, Banerjee said, “You respect us, we respect you”.
Attempts to humiliate elected representatives would be met with a renewed assertion of “the constitutional idea of tolerance, dissent, and democratic morality”, she said.
“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,” the chief minister said.
