KOLKATA : West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Thursday alleged that ED officials were attempting to seize TMC’s hard disks, internal documents and sensitive organisational data during a search operation at the residence of I-PAC chief Prateek Jain here.

She described the raid at the residence of Jain as politically motivated and unconstitutional. I-PAC also looks after the IT cell of the Trinamool Congress. Banerjee made the allegations after emerging from Jain’s Loudon Street residence here, where searches have been underway since Thursday morning.

Search operations were also being conducted at the office of the Indian Political Action Committee (I-PAC), the consultancy firm Jain heads. Claiming that the ED was trying to access the ruling party’s internal strategy, candidate lists and confidential digital material, Banerjee said such information had no link to any financial probe.

“They are trying to take our party’s hard disk, strategy and plans. Is it the duty of the ED to collect political parties’ documents?” the chief minister asked, launching a sharp attack on Union Home Minister Amit Shah.

“Calling the exercise an act of intimidation,” Banerjee said, “This is not law enforcement, this is political vendetta. The home minister is behaving like the nastiest home minister, not someone who protects the country.”?

The exact nature of the searches and details of the case being probed were not immediately clear.There was no official statement from the ED or the I-PAC till the filing of this report.

Leader of Opposition in West Bengal Assembly Suvendu Adhikari termed Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s visit to IPAC chief Pratik Jain’s house during the ED raid on Thursday as “unconstitutional and interference” in the central agency’s probe.

He said that the ED should take steps against the chief minister.

“I feel that the chief minister and the Kolkata police commissioner’s visit was unethical, unconstitutional and direct interference in the central agency’s investigation,” Adhikari told reporters soon after they visit Jain’s residence at Loudon Street here, as an Enforcement Directorate (ED) raid was going on there.

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