Poll-eve tax raids on CM’s proposer, TMC candidate prompt Mamata Banerjee battle cry

KOLKATA: Income-tax officials on Friday raided CM Mamata Banerjee's poll nomination proposer Miraj Shah (also the trustee of one of the state's biggest private educational institutions), and Trinamool's Rashbehari candidate Debashis Kumar, prompting the CM to call BJP "cowards and spineless" and ask why it is so scared. "Ballots, and not bullets, win polls," she reminded the saffron party.

Calling the raids a "shameless and brazen act" by those who "cannot fight from the front", the CM said, "BJP will have to answer for this. You cannot play a dirty game."




The I-T raids mark a significant escalation of the face-off between the Centre and Trinamool govt less than a week before Bengal goes to vote in the first phase on April 23.

On Friday, a team of I-T officers reached Kumar's Manoharpukur Road residence at 5 am. According to local residents, CAPF jawans jumped over the locked gate to knock on Kumar's door. The I-T officials followed and started a marathon search-and-interrogation session that last for nearly 15 hours.

Another I-T team reached Kumar's election office a few metres away, a third team reached Kumar's mother-in-law's flat in the neighbourhood, a fourth reached the Trinamool party office on Motilal Nehru Road while a fifth raided the house of Kumar's close associate Kumar Saha in Kalighat.

A lawyer who arrived at Kumar's house was not allowed entry by central forces. Kumar had a Friday deadline to submit his poll-related expenditure, but his agent, Rakesh Kamath, who reached his house to get a few documents signed, was also stopped by the jawans.

As news of the raid spread, Trinamool workers started arriving in large numbers and staged protests at the spot.

After the I-T team left around 8 pm, Kumar said, "Frankly, I don't know what they found. All I know is I lost a day of campaigning. The outcome of these raids will be known on May 4 (day of counting). This raid will only help me. I will abide by the law and leave it to the people of Rashbehari to decide my fate." Kumar had earlier been questioned twice by Enforcement Directorate in connection with an alleged land grab and illegal construction case.

In the afternoon, I-T officials also reached the Elgin Road residence of Miraj Shah — a businessman who had accompanied CM Banerjee as a proposer when she filed her nomination from Bhowanipore. Shah is also a member of the Trustee Board of Bhawanipur Gujarati Education Society.

CM Banerjee slammed the raids in all her election rallies for the day. "They (BJP) are sitting in Bengal with hawala money but are conducting searches at my candidate's house and party office. They even tried to search my plane," she said in Cooch Behar in the morning.

At a meeting in Dum Dum in the evening, she said, "Doesn't BJP have the courage to fight directly? Contesting elections is a constitutional right. Keeping a candidate detained the whole day is infringing on that right. I will take legal action as much as possible."

Banerjee also attacked PM Modi and Union home minister Amit Shah for repeatedly "misusing" central agencies. "You are turning each central agency into a BJP worker. I have never seen a govt like this before," she said, vowing never to bow before "their sinister plans".

At a third public meeting in Dum Dum, she accused BJP of "trying to capture Bengal by force".Get real-time updates and result insights on the CBSE 12 Result 2026.