Chaos ensued after West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee on Monday rushed to the residence of Prateek Jain, the head of the Indian Political Action Committee (I-PAC), where Enforcement Directorate (ED) officials were conducting a raid.
The ED raids, in connection with a money laundering case, included I-PAC’s office in Salt Lake, Jain's residence at Loudon Street, and the office of a trader in Posta, Burrabazar.
Visuals from the scene show the furious CM lashing out at reporters in her attempt to push past the crowd and get to Jain, whom she has called the Trinamool Congress's (TMC) IT chief.
She later told the crowd that the raids were the work of the "nasty, naughty Home Minister" Amit Shah who was "taking away all my party documents".
The party has also alleged that the raids were part of a "larger conspiracy" orchestrated with the help of the ED ahead of the elections in the state.
"On one side, they are deleting the names of all the voters by carrying out the SIR in West Bengal ... Because of the elections, they are collecting all the information about my party," she claimed.
"What will be the result if I raid the BJP party office?" she questioned.
While the ED raids are reportedly part of a case against against an organised gang involved in scamming people by offering them fake government jobs, the agency's motives behind the raid at Jain's residence is not yet known.
(This is a developing story. More details are awaited.)
