Income Tax officials today conducted a search at the chopper which is used by Abhishek Banerjee, national general secretary of Trinamul Congress at the Behala flying club this afternoon. Trinamul Congress has condemned the incident and Mr Banerjee on his X handle wrote: “Instead of removing the @NIA_ India DG and SP@ECIVEEP 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 thr might but Bengal’s SPRIT of RESISTANCE will never waver.”
Mr Banerjee is scheduled to hold a conference of party functionaries at Haldia on Monday and he is supposed to travel to East Midnapore in the helicopter. A team of Income Tax officials raided the Behala Flying club when the chopper which Mr Banerjee uses during his trips to distant districts was on a trial run. The I-T officials went inside the chopper and opened the bags that were on board.
However, they did not get anything. Dr Shashi Panja, state minister for Women and Child Development and Social Welfare said: “The raid by the IT officials clearly indicated that the agencies are working hand in glove with the BJP. The BJP is mortally scared and is using the agencies to intimidate the opposition. Trinamul Congress had demanded that the director and SP of the NIA be removed in view of the election just as the DG and SPs of the state police have been removed. The ECI instead of providing a level playing ground is working at the behest of the BJP.
We will fight the connivance between the BJP and the agencies and win the battle.” Mr Kunal Ghosh, state general secretary of Trinamul Congress said: “The raid is the result of vendetta politics.” He alleged that the I-T officials got involved in a wordy duel with the security personnel on duty after the latter started taking photographs of the raid. The I-T officials allegedly told them not to take photographs and threatened them,” he said, asking: “What is going on? The BJP cannot stop the Trinamul by harassing its leaders.”