‘Arrogance in uniform’: Mamata hits out as TMC MPs dragged away by Delhi cops

Kolkata: Bengal Chief Minister and Trinamool Congress (TMC) supremo Mamata Banerjee and the party’s national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee on Friday condemned the detention of TMC MPs during a protest outside the office of the Union Home minister over the Enforcement Directorate’s raids in Kolkata a day earlier.

The protest took a dramatic turn when Delhi Police personnel detained eight TMC MPs, physically dragging and carrying them away from the protest site before taking them to Parliament Street Police Station. Visuals showed MPs being hauled by police as they raised slogans and held placards alleging misuse of the ED. All the MPs were later released.

MPs Derek O’Brien, Satabdi Roy, Mahua Moitra, Bapi Haldar, Saket Gokhale, Pratima Mondal, Kirti Azad and Sharmila Sarkar were among those who took part in the protest.

Calling the action an assault on democracy and a display of “arrogance in uniform”, Mamata accused the BJP-led Centre of suppressing dissent and humiliating elected representatives for exercising their democratic right to protest. “I strongly condemn the shameful and unacceptable treatment meted out to our Members of Parliament,” she said in a post on social media. “Dragging elected representatives on the streets for exercising their democratic right to protest outside the Home Minister’s office is not law enforcement — it is arrogance in uniform. This is a democracy, not the BJP’s private property,” she wrote on X.

Alleging a double standard in the treatment of political protests. “When Opposition MPs raise their voices, they are dragged, detained and humiliated. This exposes the BJP’s idea of democracy — obedience, not dissent,”

Banerjee wrote.

Warning the Centre, she said: “You respect us, we respect you. You drag us on the road, and we will drag you back to the constitutional idea of tolerance, dissent and democratic morality.”

Reacting sharply, Abhishek Banerjee said the BJP-led Centre would not be able to intimidate the TMC through force. In a post on X, he said: “Criminals are rewarded. Agencies are weaponised. Elections are manipulated. Jail the protesters. Bail the rapists. This is BJP’s version of New India. Even if the rest of the country is forced to surrender, Bengal will resist. We will fight you tooth and nail and defeat you, no matter how much force you unleash.”