Bulldozers Demolish Amtala Political Office Tied to Abhishek Banerjee

KOLKATA, India — Police and federal paramilitary units sealed off a five-story office belonging to Abhishek Banerjee, the powerful national general secretary of West Bengal's ruling Trinamool Congress, on Saturday, clearing the way for bulldozers to tear the building down.

Officials in South 24 Parganas district said the structure, on the Amtala-Baruipur road in Amtala, had gone up without proper building sanction — the legal basis cited for the demolition. The district administration began tearing down the office from Saturday afternoon, and by the time the operation was underway, the five-story structure was coming down in full swing under a joint escort of state police and Central Armed Police Forces personnel.

The scale of the security presence signaled how carefully authorities were managing the optics. The demolition was carried out under the supervision of local Block Development Officers and a Block Land Revenue Officer, with state fire service personnel standing by, and guardrails were used to barricade the entire site. On the ground, witnesses described a heavier and heavier police footprint as the hours wore on, with barricades closing off half the road near the Amtala intersection where the office sits.

Mr. Banerjee, 38, is not a peripheral figure. He is a sitting member of Parliament from Diamond Harbour, the Trinamool Congress's Lok Sabha floor leader, and the nephew of Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee — long viewed as her likely political successor. That lineage makes the sight of state bulldozers rolling up to his party office impossible to read as routine code enforcement alone, particularly in a state where allegations of illegal construction are common but rarely trigger this kind of show of force.

No formal comment from Mr. Banerjee or the Trinamool Congress had circulated publicly at the time this was filed. The demolition was continuing Saturday afternoon.