BJP leader and would-be West Bengal Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari suffered a major loss on Wednesday night after his personal aide and close aide Chandranath Rath was shot dead in Madhyamgram in North 24 Parganas district. However, this is not the first time Adhikari’s personal assistant has died of an unnatural cause.
In 2013, when Adhikari was a member of the Trinamool Congress and serving as Member of Parliament for Tamluk, his former personal assistant Pradeep Jha was found dead on the pavement on Strang Road in Kolkata on August 3, 2013.
Jha worked as a personal assistant not only to Adhikari but also to another TMC MLA, Haji Nurul Islam, who died in 2024.
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According to the Times Of India dated 2013, Jha was 42 years old when he was found dead and was a resident of Charakdanga in Barasa. On the morning of August 3, 2013, the Kolkata Police control room discovered that a man was lying unconscious on the road and arrived at the scene to find Jha there, the report said. He was taken to hospital but was declared dead.
Haji Nurul Islam had told TOI that Jha joined Adhikari after working with him and described him as a “brilliant young man”.
Pradeep Jha had worked on Adhikari’s election-related work at that time
Like Chandranath Rath, whom BJP leaders described as “Mr. Dependable” and said was involved in Adhikari’s election work, Jha also played a similar role at the time in Adhikari’s office.
Read also: Car tail and then execution-style murder: Shocking details in the killing of Suvendu Adhikari’s aide
TOI quoted a Trinamul insider as saying that Jha was in charge of Adhikari’s office, “MP fund accounts and all Adhikari’s political programmes”.
Pradeep Jha “was drunk”
According to media reports, police found that Jha was drunk when he was found dead. One of the investigators said that about 700 ml of alcohol was found in his stomach, some food residue stuck in his windpipe, and his lips were bruised, according to the aforementioned report.
Chandranath Rath was shot dead
However, unlike Jha who was found dead by police in the morning, Adhikari’s current personal assistant, who had been working with him since 2021, was shot dead while in a car with two other people on Wednesday night and was declared dead by the time he was taken to the hospital.
Also Read: Former IAF employee in PA Suvendu Adhikari’s ‘Mr Dependable’ Who was Chandranath Rath?
Adhikari, who is now a senior BJP leader in Bengal and is the state’s chief ministerial candidate after defeating his former boss Mamata Banerjee in Bhabanipur constituency, described Chandranath’s killing as a “cold-blooded murder”.
“We are not coming to any conclusion at this moment, even though the TMC has used terrorism all these years. The Directorate General of Police has assured us that a proper investigation is underway. He said this was a planned murder committed in cold blood. A car was used in the crime,” Adhikari said.
He added, “We believe that the incident may or may not have anything to do with politics. The police have found that the murder was planned during the last three-four days. A survey has been conducted. Our party will stand by the victim’s family.”
Police are investigating the murder and have arrested three people in connection with the case.
Suvendu Adhikari’s bodyguard died in 2018
One of Adhikari’s close aides, his bodyguard Subhabrata Chakraborty, died in October 2018 under mysterious circumstances. He is reported to have died by suicide and was allegedly shot using his service pistol in 2018 at a police barracks in East Medinipur.
At the time of Chakraborty’s death, Adhikari was the leader of the Trinamool Congress (TMC) and was serving as Transport Minister in her cabinet. In 2020, he joined the Bharatiya Janata Party.
