Former Trinamool Congress MLA and former deputy speaker of the West Bengal Assembly, Asish Banerjee, was found dead inside the TMC office near his residence in Rampurhat in Birbhum on Sunday morning (16th August). Banerjee’s body was found hanging inside the office.
As per reports, a purported suicide note was also recovered from the office. His body has been sent for post-mortem to ascertain the cause of death. Police are investigating the circumstances that led to his death.
The five-time TMC leader had lost to a BJP candidate in the recent assembly elections. He contested from Rampurhat but lost to BJP candidate Dhruva Saha by over 24,000 votes. He had been representing the Rampurhat assembly seat continuously since 2001.
In June this year, he resigned from the post of chairman of the party’s Birbhum district core committee. He had served as the deputy speaker of the state assembly during the TMC’s last term.
The TMC faced a humiliating defeat in the 2026 Assembly elections at the hands of the BJP. The party witnessed internal conflict and rifts after losing power in the state. A faction of rebel TMC MLAs split from the party in the West Bengal Legislative Assembly and merged with the Nationalist Citizens Party of India (NCPI). The rebel faction included veteran leaders like Sudip Bandyopadhyay, Kakoli Ghosh Dastidar, and others such as Satabdi Roy, Saayoni Ghosh, and Arup Chakraborty.
