I-T search on Abhishek Banerjee’s helicopter sparks furore

The Trinamool Congress on Sunday said that its general secretary Abhishek Banerjee’s helicopter was raided by Income Tax officials in Kolkata’s Behala flying club and lodged a complaint with the Election Commission of India alleging “executive overreach and abuse of powers” by the I-T department.

Mr. Banerjee took to social media and said there were no findings after the raids and “Bengal’s spirit of resistance will never waver”.

“Instead of removing the @NIA_India DG and SP, @ECISVEEP and @BJP4India chose to deploy minions from IT to search and raid my chopper and security personnel today, resulting in no findings,” Mr. Banerjee said on X. The Trinamool Congress alleged that the search was part of a deliberate ploy by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to “harass and intimidate opposition candidates whom they cannot engage with politically”.