Kolkata, April 2 The Trinamool Congress described Thursday's multi-city searches at premises linked to the executives of political consultancy firm I-PAC as the BJP's "desperate attempt" to derail the TMC's election campaigns in West Bengal.
The TMC, a client of I-PAC, accused the BJP government at the Centre of pursuing vendetta politics against its "only challenger" ahead of the West Bengal elections to be held later this month.
The ED conducted the raids at locations in Bengaluru, Hyderabad and Delhi in connection with an alleged coal smuggling and pilferage scam in West Bengal, according to officials.
The premises of I-PAC co-founder and director Rishi Raj Singh are among those covered, they said.
TMC state general secretary Kunal Ghosh claimed that the ED's move is aimed at knowing the election strategy of the TMC, as campaigning for elections has started, and the leaders are crisscrossing the entire state.
"The BJP, through the central agencies, is trying to disturb the TMC at such a crucial time. They did it in January also and are at their nefarious game again," Ghosh said.
On January 8, Banerjee had turned up at the Kolkata residence of I-PAC director Pratik Jain amid an ongoing ED search, alleging that the central agency was attempting to seize the TMC's internal documents, hard disks and sensitive digital data linked to its election strategy. She had been seen coming out of the premises carrying some documents.
Ghosh said, "The BJP will be blown over by the huge mandate of people to TMC in the polls. The more they adopt such dirty tricks to harass our party, the more they will be alienated from the people of Bengal."
Ghosh, a former Rajya Sabha MP, is also an assembly poll candidate.
Countering him, senior BJP leader Rahul Sinha said, "The raids are not related to polls but part of a continuing probe into cases of coal and cattle smuggling by some people close to the TMC."
"Did not such raids take place before the election? There have been instances of TMC leaders and ministers sent to jail in connection with such cases,” Sinha said.
Banerjee had "forcibly" taken away some files in January while interfering into the raids in Kolkata, the BJP leader said.
“The TMC must know that come what may, the investigation will continue and the guilty will not be able to hide anymore," Sinha said.
I-PAC directors Singh and Jain were recently summoned by the ED to record their statements. They have approached the Delhi High Court to quash these notices issued to them, citing ongoing election work in West Bengal and Tamil Nadu.