Mahua Moitra Calls BJP ‘Beguner Baccha’ as TMC MPs get Detained During Protest Outside Amit Shah’s Office

Trinamool Congress MP Mahua Moitra hit out at the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), calling them ‘Beguner Baccha’ (son of brinjal), after several TMC MPs were detained by Delhi Police while protesting outside Union Home Minister Amit Shah’s office in New Delhi on Friday over the Enforcement Directorate’s (ED) I-PAC raids in West Bengal.

After being detained and bundled up into the police bus, the Krishnanagar MP said the party was exercising its democratic right to protest against what it termed the misuse of central agencies ahead of the 2026 Assembly elections in Bengal. “It is our democratic right to protest against the ED raids in Bengal. We were pulled, pushed and bundled into the bus and detained by the Delhi Police,” Moitra said. Lashing out at the BJP, she added, “The people of Bengal and the country at large must look at the way they are now taking us. I will call them ‘Beguner Baccha’. If they want to see the power of a tiger, they must come to Bengal. BJP is ‘Beguner Baccha’ and TMC wields the power of ‘Bagher Bacchas’ (tiger cubs). Come and see that in Bengal.”

The ‘Beguner Baccha’ remark drew attention because it follows a recent controversy involving Union Sports Minister Mansukh Mandaviya. During a press conference on the Indian Super League, Mandaviya had mispronounced the names of Kolkata football clubs Mohun Bagan and East Bengal as “Mohun Baingan” and “East Baingan”, triggering criticism from the TMC, which accused the BJP of disrespecting Bengal’s culture. The incident had sparked a flurry of memes and political jibes on social media.

Trinamool Congress’s protest on Friday was staged by the MPs outside Amit Shah’s office to oppose the ED’s searches at the offices of the Indian Political Action Committee (I-PAC) in Kolkata and the residence of its chief, Pratik Jain, in connection with an alleged coal smuggling and money-laundering case. During the demonstration, MPs held placards reading “Amit Shah + ED versus People of Bengal” and “Bengal rejects Modi-Shah’s filthy tactics”.

Among those detained were Derek O’Brien and Mahua Moitra, along with Satabdi Roy, Bapi Haldar, Saket Gokhale, Pratima Mondal, Kirti Azad and Sharmila Sarkar. Visuals showed Moitra and O’Brien being dragged and pushed into police vans before all the MPs were taken to Parliament Street police station.

Defending Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s actions during the ED searches in Kolkata a day earlier, Moitra accused the BJP of political vendetta. “The BJP is using the ED as a political dacoit, for political loot and political espionage. What happened yesterday was nothing but political espionage,” she said. “They are trying to steal our strategic and political information because they cannot fight us on the ground. Mamata Banerjee is a tigress. What she did was protect her party’s documents and data. The ED was conducting a raid, and Mamata Banerjee raided the ED.”

The latest detentions mark a further escalation in the confrontation between the Trinamool Congress and the BJP-led Centre, with the TMC alleging that central agencies are being used to target the party and intimidate Bengal ahead of crucial elections.​