Trinamul leader Abhishek Banerjee, who was questioned by the Enforcement Directorate on Thursday, once again accused the BJP-led Centre on Friday of misusing central agencies to intimidate the Opposition.

Attending a clothes distribution ceremony at Falta in South 24-Parganas, the Trinamul national general secretary said: “We have been saying this over and over again — simply because the BJP is unable to fight us politically, they are resorting to misuse of a number of central agencies to intimidate us.”

“But we won’t bow our heads... before anybody but the people. They (the BJP) have consistently been trying to disrupt my political programmes,” Abhishek, the Diamond Harbour MP, added. Friday's event was had originally been scheduled on Thursday but had to be postponed because of the ED questioning.

Abhishek has now appeared before central agencies six times. Emerging from the ED office on Thursday after questioning in the teacher recruitment controversy, he had said he had submitted a 6,000-page reply and was willing to fully cooperate if the ED decides to call him again after going through the material.

Senior ED officials have said that in their attempt to trace the money trail in the alleged irregularities in appointments for state-aided schools, they had collected several leads following the custodial interrogation of Sujay Krishna Bhadra alias Kalighater kaku, the chief operating officer of Leaps and Bounds Private Limited. Abhishek is the chief executive officer of the company.

Thursday’s questioning, said the officials, was aimed at finding more about the exact nature of the company’s operations, details of its business transactions and book of records, and about Abhishek’s assets.

Abhishek said on Friday that since the central agencies had been restrained from taking coercive action against him by the Supreme Court in the alleged coal pilferage scam, they had intensified activities against him and his family in connection with the probe into the suspected irregularities in recruitments for schools.

“I have said it before, I will say it again. I will not succumb to this intimidation,” he said.

Abhishek mocked Prime Minister Narendra Modi and other senior BJP leaders for their failure to have him defeated in the general election in 2019.

“They had tried their very best to defeat me. From the Prime Minister to so many other seniors… they held meeting after meeting here, and leaders from all over were camping in Diamond Harbour. The Prime Minister held a meeting and BJP leaders claimed that after the 2019 results, my MP office in Amtala would be shut down,” he said.

“With utmost humility and respect, I would like to point out that my office in Amtala is still up and running, to serve the people,” added Abhishek, thanking the people for his "close, personal bond” with Diamond Harbour.