Abhishek Banerjee used TMC funds for luxurious travel! ED raids 5 locations, including Salt Lake

The Enforcement Directorate (ED) launched simultaneous search operations at five distinct locations across Kolkata on Tuesday morning following allegations of suspicious transactions in the Trinamool Congress (TMC) bank accounts. The central agency's action comes amid a widening probe into claims by rebel TMC MPs that party funds were misappropriated to fund luxurious travel in private chartered flights. In connection with these financial dealings, Diamond Harbour MP Abhishek Banerjee had previously been summoned to Parliament in June to provide comprehensive details regarding the transactions.

The investigative tracking led ED officials to conduct coordinated raids across several prominent sectors, including Rajarhat, Radhabazar, and Salt Lake. Notably, the ongoing search operations heavily focus on the corporate premises of Carewell Aviation, the aviation firm from which the private aircraft was chartered, alongside the residential property of the company's director. Concurrently, ED teams reached the Salt Lake CG 16 residences of Pawan Jaju and Rajesh Jaju early Tuesday morning to execute thorough search protocols and examine financial ledgers.

The core of the investigation revolves around verifying whether the multi-million-rupee expenses for the luxurious chartered flights utilized by Abhishek Banerjee were directly paid using funds withdrawn from the official Trinamool organizational account. The financial dispute intensified following a major political split, after which the former party treasurer, Aroop Biswas, aligned with the Ritabrata Banerjee camp and requested that HDFC Bank's Central Plaza branch implement a debit freeze on the All India Trinamool Congress accounts. While the legal battle over the frozen accounts continues to play out in the High Court, the ED is actively gathering documents to trace the exact trail of the funds.