ED raids on premises linked to TMC MP spark political row

Kolkata: The Enforcement Directorate’s (ED) searches at premises linked to TMC Rajya Sabha MP Nadimul Haque on Monday, September 7, triggered a political war of words, with the BJP defending the action as part of a legitimate probe and the TMC alleging “vendetta politics”.

BJP leader Keya Ghosh said there was no reason to politicise the matter, as the ED searches were warranted because the agency suspected money laundering.

“If money laundering has occurred, or if the agency believes it has, then an investigation and a raid will naturally follow. If the agency feels an investigation or raid is warranted, they will do it. There is no need to politicise this matter,” she said.

Ghosh alleged that those accusing the central agency of political vendetta were attempting to use the charge to “hide their own scams”.

BJP Rajya Sabha MP and state president Samik Bhattacharya also hit out at the TMC, saying his party made no distinction between different factions within the ruling party.

“There is no such thing as good TMC or bad TMC for us. TMC is TMC. We have said this repeatedly. The less said about them, the better,” Bhattacharya said.

TMC blames Centre

The TMC, however, accused the BJP-led Union government of using central agencies to target leaders aligned with former West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee.

TMC leader Kunal Ghosh described the searches as “nothing but vendetta politics”.

“This is an attempt to harass leaders who are with Mamata Banerjee. If you join the Ritabrata or Kakoli Ghosh Dastidar or Sudip Banerjee camps, no one will raid you, and all access will be put in cold storage,” he alleged.

TMC Rajya Sabha leader Derek O’Brien also alleged that the searches were aimed at diverting public attention from a building-collapse incident in Delhi in which students were killed.

“What the BJP is trying to do is create a diversion from the death of students in Delhi caused by their ‘faltu’ (useless) engine sarkar,” O’Brien said in a statement.

“To change the focus, they raided multiple places of Nadimul Haque and our party office in Delhi, which is Nadimul Haque’s residence, and we have been using it for 15 years,” he added.

The ED on Monday searched around seven premises in Kolkata, Delhi and Ranchi as part of a money laundering investigation linked to Urdu daily ‘Akhbar-E-Mashriq’, according to officials.

Haque, 56, is a director of Akhbar-E-Mashriq Private Limited, the company that publishes the newspaper.

What is the ED case

The ED case, registered under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), stems from an FIR lodged by the Bidhannagar Police Commissionerate, officials said.

The agency’s probe relates to allegations concerning the publication and dissemination of material promoting communal disharmony, unaccounted cash transactions and funding from suspicious sources, the officials said.

The searches come amid heightened political tensions within the TMC, with rival factions engaged in an intense power struggle over the party’s organisational and legislative leadership after the assembly poll defeat in May this year.

The party’s 80-member legislative group had emerged as a key battleground, with 65 MLAs backing Ritabrata Banerjee’s claim to the Leader of the Opposition’s post and rejecting the nominee supported by the Mamata Banerjee-led leadership.

The dissident legislators subsequently convened a special session, elected senior MLA Arup Roy as chairperson and announced a parallel national leadership structure, claiming that the existing leadership under Banerjee had lost the confidence of a majority of elected representatives.

The confrontation later spilt into Parliament, with 20 of the TMC’s 27 Lok Sabha MPs aligning with the little-known NCPI and joining the BJP-led NDA, further deepening the organisational divide.

Haque, a three-term Rajya Sabha MP, remains aligned with the Mamata Banerjee-led TMC camp.