Trinamool Congress MP Kalyan Banerjee on Saturday wrote to the Union home secretary criticising a letter from the ministry asking West Bengal’s chief secretary to release three Indian Police Service officers for central deputation, reported NDTV. The development came a day after the state’s chief secretary and director general of police were summoned by the home ministry in the aftermath of the recent attack on Bharatiya Janata Party President JP Nadda’s convoy.

“We want to inform you that law and order is within the domain of the state under 7th Schedule of the State list,” Banerjee wrote, according to the Hindustan Times. “How in respect of the law and order situation you can call both the officers for any sorts of discussion?”

“All three officers were deployed on 10th December nearby at the place of occurrence. Your motive is very clear that by taking them, you want to create pressure upon the said three police officers,” Banerjee wrote.

He also suggested that the move to summon the officials had political motive and that it was done at the behest of Union Home Minister Amit Shah.

“It appears that with a political motive and at the instance of your minister, who is a political person belonging to the Bharatiya Janata Party, you have issued the said letter,” he wrote, according to NDTV. “You are trying to coerce the officers of West Bengal with political vindictiveness. It appears you are interfering with the federal structure.”

Banerjee, who is also the chief whip of Trinamool Congress, said that with Parliament not in session, he was voicing strong opposition to the move by the Centre through the letter on behalf of his party.

Earlier on Friday, the two top West Bengal bureaucrats had asked to be excused from meeting in Delhi over the law and order situation in the state. The chain of events was set forth after Nadda’s convoy was was attacked with stones and bricks in Kolkata on Thursday, during a campaign rally in the lead up to the state elections slated for April-May next year. Following the incident, Shah had asked for a report on the law and order situation in the state, which was submitted by Governor Jagdeep Dhankhar.