WEST Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Friday led a massive protest march in south Kolkata against the Enforcement Directorate’s searches linked to political consultancy firm I-PAC, as her TMC mounted a show of street strength ahead of the 2026 Assembly polls. Escalating her confrontation with the Centre, Banerjee chose the streets as her political battleground, turning the ED action into a rallying point prior to the high-stakes elections. As she walked from the 8B Bus Stand area towards Hazra More, the TMC supremo was flanked by senior Ministers, MPs, MLAs and party functionaries, with sloganeering crowds accusing the BJP-led Centre of “misusing central agencies for political vendetta”.

 

The mega rally came a day after Banerjee’s dramatic appearance at I-PAC chief Pratik Jain’s Loudon Street residence during an ED raid, an episode that has since escalated into a full-blown Centre–State confrontation. The march, however, unfolded with a cultural credence unmistakably Bengali. Party workers lustily sang Pratul Mukhopadhyay’s iconic anthem ‘Ami Banglay Gaan Gai’, while women blew conch shells, lending the protest the texture of a street festival layered with political defiance. Clad in her trademark white cotton sari, shawl and slippers, Banerjee walked steadily at the head of the procession, occasionally pausing to wave at onlookers lining both sides of the road, many of them filming the moment on their phones.

 

Adding both star power and organisational heft to the rally were actor-politicians Dev, a sitting Lok Sabha MP, and Soham Chakraborty, along with other familiar faces from the Bengali film and television industry, who now double as party representatives. Their presence drew cheers and whistles, blurring the line between cinema and politics that the TMC has increasingly embraced.