Row mirrors CM's 2019 showdown with CBI over ex-Kolkata police chief

West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee rushing to the I-PAC CEO Pratik Jain's house and his office on Thursday morning and seizing documents during the raid, and then sitting at the basement of I-PAC office in Salt Lake, is a stark reminder of the 2019 incident when the Trinamool chief had rushed to the rescue of the then Kolkata Police Commissioner Rajeev Kumar's residence on Loudon Street, just 100 metres away from Jain's apartment.

As the CBI had reached Kumar's residence to interrogate him in 2019, who is now state DGP, in connection with the Saradha case, the chief minister had rushed to his rescue. Kumar was seen on Thursday accompanying the CM to the I-PAC Salt Lake office this afternoon.

In 2019, an attempt by the CBI to question the then Kolkata Police Commissioner Rajeev Kumar (now DGP) in connection with the Saradha and Rose Valley chit fund scams had become the flashpoint between the Centre and Banerjee, one of its bitter critics. The CBI had accused Kumar of destroying evidence related to the two fraud cases.


A CBI team was prevented from entering the residence of Kumar by Kolkata police personnel and they were bundled into vehicles and detained. Contingents of West Bengal police also descended on CBI premises in the city, as a furious Banerjee rushed to Kumar's residence before starting a dharna. After spending the night at the dharna manch, Banerjee had held a cabinet meeting with her ministers behind the stage where a police outpost was turned into a makeshift state secretariat.

Again in 2024, the year started with an attack on ED officials as they visited to raid Sandeshkhali and interrogate Trinamool leader Sheikh Shahjahan.