The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Tuesday carried out search and seizure operations at multiple addresses in Bengal’s four districts in its maiden investigation into alleged irregularities in the execution of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA).

Separate teams from the central investigating agency fanned out early morning and reached the quarters of a government official in Jhargram, the house of a panchayat employee in Hooghly’s Chandernagore , the residence of an expelled panchayat worker in Murshidabad and a former block development officer’s residence in Salt Lake, North 24-Parganas.

The development came a day after Suvendu Adhikari, Bengal’s leader of the Opposition, met Union finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman and home minister Amit Shah in Delhi. The ED reports to the department of revenue under the ministry of finance.

“I made certain complaints against the Bengal government during the meeting with the finance minister,” Adhikari had said. “There is massive corruption in Bengal.”

Adhikari’s complaint against Bengal came barely 72 hours after chief minister Mamata Banerjee said her government would clear on February 21 the wage dues of 21 lakh job card-holders under the MGNREGA.

Senior ED officers said Tuesday’s search operations followed the investigating agency filing an enforcement case information
report (ECIR) based on five first information reports (FIRs) that were lodged at multiple police stations in the state. The FIRs included two at Murshidabad’s Beldanga police station and one at Hooghly’s Dhanekhali police station.

“There are allegations that fake job cards were created to first receive the funds earmarked for the 100-day job scheme and then siphon off the money. The probe is aimed at finding out whether crores of rupees of government funds were siphoned off,” the senior official said.

Early on Tuesday morning, a six-member team of ED officers reached the house of an administrative officer at Bachurdoba in Jhargram with central forces in tow. The residence was cordoned off and the officer, who works in the district’s minority office, was also questioned for several hours.

In Behrampore in Murshidabad, ED officers conducted the search and seizure operation at the house of Rathin Dey, an expelled panchayat worker.

In Hooghly’s Chandernagore, ED officers visited the house of Sandip Sandhukhan, who works for a panchayat in Khankul. His wife Mousumi told reporters her husband had left for his office when the team reached.

“The officers were looking for him. I told them he had left for the office. They later spoke to him on his mobile phone,” Mousumi told reporters.

At Salt Lake, the ED team carried out search operations at the apartment of SK Pan, former block development officer of Dhaniakhali in Hooghly.