Mamata Banerjee on Monday dared income tax (IT) officials to check the helicopters in use by BJP leaders during the election campaign, a day after her nephew Abhishek Banerjee’s chopper had been “raided” by the agency.
The Trinamul Congress chairperson said the “raid” at the Behala Flying Club in Calcutta was yet another instance of how the BJP was misusing central agencies against her party.
In a similar move, Election Commission officials on Monday checked Congress leader Rahul Gandhi’s helicopter after it landed in Nilgiris, Tamil Nadu.
“Income tax officials carried out a raid and searched Abhishek Banerjee’s helicopter before a trial run, but found nothing at all. These IT officials claimed that there were tip-offs that the copter had cash and gold, but they found nothing, of course,” the chief minister said while addressing an election campaign rally in Cooch Behar.
“We don’t take part in such activities. The BJP does.... Will the officials of the
central agency ever have the courage to check the choppers being used by BJP leaders?” she asked.
Abhishek had alleged on Sunday that a team of IT officials had “raided” the chopper meant to fly him to Haldia on Monday, and found nothing. The IT team also searched his security personnel, Abhishek said.
IT department sources claimed there was no raid or any enforcement action, just a verification of input, and Abhishek wasn’t even in the copter at the time.
“We don’t do these things (take cash and gold in helicopters). We don’t possess such things.... Unleashing agencies to hound those they cannot politically fight, to discomfit them during elections,” said Mamata, adding that the BJP had been misusing the agencies to ensure that the non-BJP parties did not have a level playing field in the general election.
Besides the IT, Mamata named agencies such as the CBI, the Enforcement Directorate and the National Investigation Agency, and accused the poll panel of being in cahoots with the saffron regime. She accused the commission of removing honest, efficient, upright, and hardworking IAS and IPS officers at the BJP’s behest, to replace them with allegedly tainted loyalists to ensure optimal electoral gains for the saffron camp.
Accusing Prime Minister Narendra Modi of having taken away the democratic right to protest, reduced civil liberties to a joke, and trying to eliminate the Opposition through unfair means, Mamata said he was a far cry from Atal Bihari Vajpayee (whose government she was part of in two stints) — the only other Prime Minister the BJP ever produced.
“Now we see Modi as the PM. The absolute worst.... We must, at any cost, remove this regime through the power of ballots,” she said.
Later in the day, Trinamul national general secretary Abhishek threatened legal action against the IT officials for allegedly stopping a trial run of the copter he was to use.
“I have no issues with IT raids. But after the IT team found nothing, they decided against allowing the trial run,” said the Diamond Harbour MP.
“A trial run is mandatory. IT officials had no authority to stop it. They even used force to have the videos, taken by my security personnel, deleted,” he added. “ IT officials cannot do this. I am mulling legal action and have already lodged a police complaint.”
The BJP jeered at both, saying Abhishek wasn’t above the law of the land and asked why Trinamul was so agitated if it had nothing to hide.
“If there is indeed nothing to hide, why such fierce reluctance to present themselves to routine, mandatory scrutiny? Why such an outrage thereafter?”, asked state BJP chief Sukanta Majumdar.
