Opinion: How Mamata turned the ED raid into a rally

It needs oodles of chutzpah, remarkable drive and a shrewd sense of timing to turn adversity into opportunity. At the end of the 7-km walk through the cold but sunny streets of Kolkata, Mamata Banerjee has seized the initiative, turning the Enforcement Directorate's raid on the Trinamool Congress's strategy consultant from a sluggish investigation into alleged money-laundering in the coal smuggling racket into a springboard for political retaliation.The full-scale attack on the Bharatiya Janata Party and its “nasty, naughty” Union Home Minister Amit Shah hours after she interrupted the raid, snatched files, hard drives and sundry other archived data from I-PAC boss Pratik Jain's home and office was her counter-punch.It served two purposes: one, use the investigations into an alleged criminal nexus as an opening to threaten exposing how money from coal mining eventually reached New Delhi; two, interpret the ED raid on I-PAC as a carefully timed act designed to unnerve or derail the Trinamool Congress's backroom.I-PAC, under contract with the Trinamool Congress, is working overtime to handle the claims and rights of voters fearing that their names will be deleted from the electoral roll as the Special Intensive Revision progresses through the verification of 58 lakh deletions, 1.36 crore “logical discrepancies.” That is Mamata Banerjee's version of events.The Communist Party of India, Marxist, however, has a different take on it; the party has written to the Chief Election Officer of West Bengal, complaining that I-PAC is involved in the Election Commission's data entry operations.Having shunted the ED to the sidelines, Mamata Banerjee has neatly buried the corruption story. If the ED had leaked information, as it usually does, about the alleged mountain of unaccounted cash and its probable destination to the top tier of the Trinamool Congress, namely Abhishek Banerjee, who was called in for questioning during the 2024 Lok Sabha election period, the raid story would have produced consequences that are entirely political.Anticipating the direction of the story, Mamata Banerjee transformed it into a murkier plot of coal smuggling money snaking its way via Leader of the Opposition in West Bengal Suvendu Adhikari (of the BJP) to Amit Shah. "They talk about coal scam money. But who does take the coal money? How is it taken? It goes through the traitors. Jagannath to Suvendu to Amit Shah, this is the chain," she declared.The raid and its aftermath are all about reinforcing popular perception. The timing of the ED raid on I-PAC, months away from the crucial West Bengal state Assembly elections, fits the pattern of similar raids on people and organisations, including political consultancy outfits.It cannot be coincidence that the ED raided and arrested Arvind Kejriwal of the Aam Aadmi Party before the Delhi elections; it cannot be coincidence that Hemant Soren, Jharkhand's Chief Minister was also raided by the ED before the elections. The strike rate of Opposition leaders arrested by the ED for alleged involvement in corruption cases, including receiving laundered money, is 95 per cent, according to news reports based on research.Months away from a difficult state Assembly election and her bid for a fourth term in office, Mamata Banerjee knows she cannot miss hitting her opponent with as much force as she can muster.The speed and extravagant response to the ED raid on I-PAC are a measure of how she understood the effect of the action. She called it politically motivated. She squarely blamed the BJP leadership and pointed a finger at Amit Shah as the mastermind.In doing so, she snared the opportunity the raid had offered; linking the dots to reveal the pattern of ED raids with political consequences. She talked about the Bihar elections, which, she said, had been stolen; she talked about the Maharashtra state Assembly election as being stolen. And she warned that the BJP was trying to steal the West Bengal elections by manipulating the electoral rolls through the Special Intensive Revision process and abuse of power by targeting I-PAC.The narrative as reset by Mamata Banerjee at the end of her 7-km rally serves several purposes. It reassures the very jittery voters, especially those with histories of arrival from Bangladesh/ East Bengal/ East Pakistan over the past seven decades, that she will not allow the Election Commission to delete the names of “eligible” voters nor will she allow Bengalis, people who speak Bengali and have permanent addresses in West Bengal, to be deported to Bangladesh.The Trinamool Congress's plans for persuading Hindu "ghuspaithiyas" (illegal migrants) that it is their champion, rather than the BJP, was linked to her over-the-top response. There was a message that had to be delivered and the raid provided the occasion to do so.If the BJP had hoped to harvest political points from the ED, the speed and direction of Mamata Banerjee's attack have wrong-footed the party. It, like the ED, was forced to issue pathetically defensive statements of her actions being “unconstitutional”, “abuse of power” and “it was not targeted at any political establishment.”The reaction sets a benchmark for parties in opposition to the BJP on how to take control of the story that has been around since 2014 that the opposition is corrupt, afraid of investigations by “agencies”, namely the ED and the Central Bureau of Investigation, and the Narendra Modi regime is merely restoring health by cutting out and cauterising the rotten bits that pollute India's body politic.In round one of the perception battle between the Trinamool Congress and the BJP in the run-up to the West Bengal election, Mamata Banerjee seems to have gained a few points. It could offset to some extent the inevitable decline in the Chief Minister's domination over the state after three terms in office, making the 2026 Assembly elections even more fiercely competitive.The West Bengal election will not be a state affair; it will be a premier national league spectator sporting event.

Opinion: How Mamata turned the ED raid into a rally

Bengal CM's message was clear: Investigations would not be allowed to decide elections.

Shikha Mukerjee

Opinion: How Mamata turned the ED raid into a rally

Bengal CM's message was clear: Investigations would not be allowed to decide elections.

Shikha Mukerjee

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