Trinamool Congress (TMC) national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee alleged on Sunday that a team of the Income Tax (IT) department raided his chopper and searched it in Kolkata.
“Instead of removing the @NIA_India DG and SP, @ECISVEEP and @BJP4India chose to deploy MINIONS FROM IT to search and raid my chopper and security personnel today, resulting in NO FINDINGS. The zamindars can exert all their might but Bengal’s SPIRIT OF RESISTANCE will never waver,” Banerjee wrote on his X handle on Sunday afternoon.
The TMC has been alleging since 2014 that federal probe agencies are being used against it by the BJP for political reasons.
A senior TMC leader said on condition of anonymity that he came to know that the chopper was kept at the Behala Flying Club airfield on the southern outskirts of Kolkata when a team of IT department officials raided the airfield and searched the chopper.
“The chopper was kept for a trial run since Abhishek Banerjee is scheduled to take a flight to Tamluk in East Midnapore on Monday for Lok Sabha campaign. The IT officers went through the luggage and the cockpit. They did not show any reason to the security personnel guarding the chopper. They found nothing. The city police have been informed about the raid,” the TMC leader said.
“The desperate manner in which federal agencies are being used shows that the BJP is afraid of Abhishek Banerjee,” said TMC spokesperson Santanu Sen.
The IT department central office in Kolkata was closed on Sunday and no official was available for comment.
Sukanta Majumder, state BJP president said that “this is nothing abnormal . It’s a routine check . TMC is trying to politicise the issue because they are corrupt .”
Rahul Sinha, former state president of the Bengal BJP unit said there is nothing unusual about the IT raid.
“Banerjee is a suspect in the bribe-for-job scam in the education department and the coal smuggling case which both Enforcement Directorate (ED) and Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) are probing under orders of the Calcutta high court. All federal agencies work in tandem in cases that are related,” Sinha added.