ED freezes TMC's Rs 440-crore bank accounts; party cries political vendetta

Summary

The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Wednesday froze three HDFC Bank accounts of the All India Trinamool Congress (AITC) holding Rs 440.42 crore as part of a money laundering probe into an alleged fund trail linked to the Carewell Group. The Trinamool Congress termed the action "politically motivated", calling it an arbitrary and illegal misuse of central investigative agencies to target political opponents. The action followed searches conducted by the ED's Kolkata Zonal Office at five premises in and around Kolkata under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), 2002. According to the agency, the investigation pertains to alleged dishonest financial dealings, unlawful collection of money and the routing of suspected funds through certain bank accounts of the Trinamool Congress. According to the ED, its probe has revealed that nearly Rs 160 crore was transferred from AITC's bank accounts to Carewell Aviation India Pvt Ltd and its related entities between April 2023 and June 2026. According to the probe agency, the Embraer Legacy 600 aircraft and the Agusta helicopter were later leased back to the Trinamool Congress, despite allegedly being purchased using funds originating from the party's corpus. Reacting to the ED's action, the Trinamool Congress rejected the allegations and asserted that all funds held in its bank accounts have been fully disclosed in accordance with the law. In a statement, the party said all donation transactions had been duly reported to the Election Commission of India (ECI) and the Income Tax Department, with annual disclosures available in the public domain on the ECI's website. The party also said details relating to electoral bonds were already available with the Government of India, as the bonds were issued by the State Bank of India and subsequently submitted before the Supreme Court. The Enforcement Directorate has not responded to the Trinamool Congress's allegations of political vendetta.