The Assembly on Monday passed a resolution against the “prejudiced” role played by central investigating agencies, including the CBI and the Enforcement Directorate.

Although several state governments helmed by non-BJP parties have alleged the misuse of federal agencies, Mamata Banerjee’s government became the first to move and pass such a resolution in the Assembly. Sources in the Trinamul Congress said by setting a precedence of passing the resolution, Mamata was trying to reclaim her position in the national space, which appeared to have suffered a dip after her cabinet minister Partha Chatterjee and party leader Anubrata Mondal had been arrested in two different cases.

“Didi’s popularity reached new heights nationally after she stopped the BJP’s juggernaut in the 2021 polls. However, with the arrest of Parthda and Anubrata, the party has suffered a face loss. This move will help her reaffirm her resolution against the BJP and establish her stake in national politics,” a Trinamul MLA said.

The resolution moved by Trinamul MLAs Nirmal Ghosh and Tapas Roy accused the central government led by the BJP of “deliberately harassing the public representatives of the ruling party and arresting them to create an unstable atmosphere in the state”.

Taking a direct dig at the leader of the Opposition Suvendu Adhikari, it also alleged that the central investigation agencies had taken no action against the leaders of the BJP though they were accused in several scams.

The resolution was passed through a division as it received 189 MLAs in its favour while 64 voted against it. One MLA, Naushad Siddiqui of the ISF, abstained from voting.

“The Union government is more than dictators, more than Hitler, more than Stalin and more than Mussolini…This resolution is not against anyone it is against partiality… we want them to act like human beings and investigate impartially,” chief minister Mamata Banerjee said at the House.

She said the CBI had a very poor success rate as it had not been able to bring closure to cases such as the theft of Rabindranath Tagore’s Nobel prize, Nandigram firing, the murder of Tapasi Malik or the Netai massacre.

“Supreme Court judges have said the CBI is a caged parrot, not us… they are barging into our homes at any time, without showing a minimum decency,” she said, adding that wherever the Opposition parties were in power, the BJP was employing the federal agencies to usurp power.

“The BJP is like a washing machine…. If Firhad Hakim, Subrata Mukherjee are summoned in the Narada case, why isn’t the house of our leader here raided?” Mamata threw her question at the Opposition bench targeting Adhikari.

Taking a dig at the treasury benches for moving the resolution, Adhikari said if Trinamul was confident of being treated unjustly, it must move court for remedies. But they wouldn’t do so, Adhikari said, because they knew that “something is wrong”.

“This resolution is illegal. The Supreme Court on July 27 passed an order strengthening the ED. This resolution is a direct challenge to the apex court’s orders,” Adhikari said, adding that once the Supreme Court passed a verdict, it becomes the rule of land and only the three-fourth majority of Parliament is equipped to amend or discard it. Inside the House, Adhikari told Speaker Biman Banerjee that resolutions and motions brought by BJP MLAs were often rejected on grounds of the matter being sub-judice. But, in spite of the fact that the investigations by the central agencies were ordered by the court, the Speaker has allowed such a resolution to be moved.“If this resolution is challenged in the Supreme Court, it will be discarded outright,” he said.

“Today, the people of Bengal saw that 189 Trinamul MLAs are in favour of thieves and 64 BJP MLAs are against them,” Adhikari added.