Mamata to hit streets on Jan 9 against ED raids at I-PAC office

West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee will lead a protest march here on Friday against the Enforcement Directorate raids at the office of political consultancy firm I-PAC, Trinamool Congress sources said.

Apart from providing political consultancy to the TMC, the I-PAC also manages the party’s IT and media operations.

Banerjee, also the TMC supremo, will lead the march from Jadavpur 8B Bus Stand to Hazra More at 2 pm, the sources said, terming the ED action ''politically motivated'' and aimed at intimidating the ruling party ahead of the assembly elections.

The announcement comes hours after Banerjee dramatically turned up at the Kolkata residence of I-PAC chief Pratik Jain amid an ongoing ED search on Thursday, alleging that the central agency was attempting to seize the Trinamool Congress's internal documents, hard disks and sensitive digital data linked to its election strategy.

Emerging from the premises, the chief minister accused the ED of acting at the behest of the Centre to ''harass'' the state's ruling party.

The ED conducted searches at two locations linked to I-PAC in Kolkata on Thursday.