'If I Am Attacked, I Am Reborn': Mamata Banerjee After I-PAC Raids

Taking the fight to the Centre following the Enforcement Directorate (ED) raids on the Indian Political Action Committee (I-PAC), which is helping the Trinamool Congress with strategy for the crucial West Bengal Assembly elections, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee led a 6-km protest rally in Kolkata on Friday. 

Beginning the rally from Jadavpur, Banerjee walked at the front with a big group of party leaders and workers behind her, and a large crowd lined the sides of the road to support her. After the rally ended in Hazra, the Trinamool Congress chief addressed supporters and said she did not regret going into I-PAC Co-Founder Pratik Jain's house during the raids on Thursday, an action for which both the Enforcement Directorate and BJP leaders have demanded a probe against her. 

"What I did yesterday, I did as the Trinamool Congress chairperson. I have done nothing illegal," Banerjee said, adding many things had been taken away by the time she arrived. Alleging that central agencies like the ED and CBI were being used for political ends, she asked, "If someone tries to kill me politically, don't I have the right to defend myself?" 

The ED action against I-PAC is linked to an alleged coal scam and the chief minister said several BJP leaders were involved in coal scams too. "I have all the proof on pen drives. I will release it when the time comes," she said.

"All agencies have been captured. You forcibly captured Maharashtra, Haryana and Bihar. Do you think you can capture Bengal too? If someone tries to hit me politically, I get politically rejuvenated and reborn," she declared.

On the 2026 polls, the chief minister said the BJP would not be able to make inroads and her party would get a resounding mandate. "It will not be our fall, it will be yours," she said. 

Banerjee was speaking hours after several Trinamool MPs, including Derek O'Brien and Mahua Moitra, were detained by the Delhi police while protesting outside Home Minister Amit Shah's office. 

The Bengal chief minister had hit out at the Centre over that as well, saying the BJP's idea of democracy is "obedience". 

Hitting back, the BJP said Mamata Banerjee was running an extremely corrupt government and should be made an accused for intimidating ED officials. 

"There are a lot of suspicious circumstances surrounding the barbaric action of Mamata Banerjee... This means she was trying to rescue something sensitive implicating her and her party," BJP spokesperson Ravi Shankar Prasad said.

(With inputs from PTI)