New Delhi [India], January 14 : BJP MP Sudhanshu Trivedi on Wednesday welcomed the Calcutta High Court's decision to dispose of the TMC's plea seeking protection of the "political data" in connection with the recent ED raids on the Indian Political Action Committee's (I-PAC) premises and the residence of its Director, Pratik Jain, in Kolkata.
The Calcutta High Court today disposed of TMC's plea after the Enforcement Directorate (ED) said that "nothing was seized" from the I-PAC premises. The court adjourned the matter until the Supreme Court disposes of the Special Leave Petition.
The BJP leader slammed West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee for allegedly obstructing the January 8 ED raid and "defending a private firm" (I-PAC). Launching a scathing attack, Trivedi claimed that "the Constitution is in danger" in the INDIA bloc-ruled states.
He further mocked the TMC for outsourcing strategic consultancy, saying the party leadership is "incompetent" in formulating strategy.
Sudhanshu Trivedi said, "The way the High Court in West Bengal dismissed the Trinamool Congress's claim today has made it constitutionally clear that the Trinamool Congress's claim was entirely unjustified from both a moral and constitutional standpoint. However, this process also raises several political questions. This is the first time in India's history that a political party has come forward to defend a private institution. If your claim is true that all of your party's strategy was with a private institution, it means that the top leadership of the Trinamool Congress believes that all its senior leaders and workers are incompetent and completely incapable of formulating a strategy."
Further, he claimed that the TMC chief, Mamata Banerjee, does not trust West Bengal police or her party members, as she herself arrived at the I-PAC office during the raids.
"Secondly, even after that, if they felt that the institution held sensitive information, Mamata ji did not even trust her own police. This means that the West Bengal government believes that its own police force is not trustworthy. That is why Mamata ji herself went there. The third point is that Mamata ji did not even trust any of her personal staff to retrieve the files from there and went and took the files herself. These actions are not only morally and politically wrong but also unconstitutional. The people of the country should understand very well that wherever the INDIA bloc and its constituent parties are in power, the Constitution is in danger," the BJP MP said.
Meanwhile, TMC leader Kunal Ghosh hit out at the BJP, accusing the Centre of "misusing" the ED as the probe agency raided I-PAC in a 2021 case.
He added that Mamata Banerjee opposed the raids to "protect the TMC's information repository."
The TMC leader said, "This is a long legal process. Our stand remains the same, that this case was registered in 2021, so was the ED asleep all this time? Now that there are elections in Bengal, they're conducting raids here. The BJP is misusing the ED. Our leader, Mamata Banerjee, opposed it to protect the information repository of our party. If this was such an important investigation, then after five years of sleep, did the ED wake up just before the elections? The public is watching everything."
Earlier today, during the hearing of the matter, the TMC told the High Court, "Our petition is limited to the point that our personal political data be protected. It is inappropriate to bully a political party when it has filed a petition, believing that its data could be taken from its political consultant of six years."
The ED stated that "nothing was seized" and demanded that the TMC's plea be disposed of. "Nothing has been seized. Whatever was taken was taken away by Mamata Banerjee," ED said.
The ED also told the court that the search operation had "nothing to do with Trinamool Congress."
ED told the High Court, "The raid had nothing to do with the Trinamool Congress, and the person who was raided by the ED has not come before you."
"The search was conducted somewhere else, but another party is coming and saying that my data was with them. This is not how it works," the probe agency added.
The ED, in its petition, has accused the West Bengal Police, allegedly acting in collusion with Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, of obstructing its officials and failing to discharge their public duty and taking away what the agency described as "key evidence", including physical documents and electronic devices.