Trinamool Congress (TMC) MPs, including Mahua Moitra, were detained by Delhi Police during a protest outside Union Home Minister Amit Shah’s office in the national capital on January 9, 2026. The protest was organised in response to Enforcement Directorate (ED) raids conducted on the offices of I-PAC, a political consulting firm in Kolkata. TMC leaders have claimed that the raids are politically motivated, alleging that investigative agencies are being misused to target opposition parties ahead of upcoming elections.
The MPs went to Kartavya Bhawan, which houses the Home Ministry, where they were blocked at the gate and removed by police. Their placards read “Amit Shah + ED versus People of Bengal.” Those detained included Derek O’Brien, Mahua Moitra, Satabdi Roy, Bapi Haldar, Saket Gokhale, Pratima Mondal, Kirti Azad and Sharmila Sarkar, and they were taken to Parliament Street Police Station.
The ED searched I-PAC’s Kolkata office and the residence of its co-founder on January 8. I-PAC has managed the Trinamool Congress’s election campaigns. The ED has linked the searches to an alleged coal smuggling racket and said they had no connection to I-PAC or any political party. The TMC and I-PAC moved the Calcutta High Court challenging the searches.
A police official said protests were not allowed outside the Home Ministry because of prohibitory orders and security concerns, and that the MPs would be released shortly. The TMC called the police action “undemocratic, unconstitutional, shameful”, and Moitra accused Amit Shah of misusing the ED.
