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Chandranath not Suvendu's first close aide to die unnaturally: A 2013 and 2018 flashback
Much like Chandranath Rath, who BJP leaders said that he was involved with Adhikari's election work, Pradip Jha also reportedly played a similar role for him.
Bharatiya Janata Party leader and West Bengal next chief minister potential Suvendu Adhikari suffered a major loss on Wednesday night after his personal assistant 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 unnatural cause.
Back in 2013, when Adhikari was a member of Trinamool Congress and was serving as a Member of Parliament from Tamluk, his former personal assistant Pradip Jha was found dead on a pavement on Kolkata's Strang Road on August 3, 2013.
Jha worked as personal assistant for not just Adhikari but another TMC MLA as well, Haji Nurul Islam, who died in 2024.
Track live updates of Chandranath Rath's murder news here
According to a Times of India reported 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, Kolkata police' control room found out that a man was lying unconscious on the road and reached the spot to find Jha there, the report said. He was taken to a hospital but was declared dead.
Haji Nurul Islam had told TOI that Jha joined Adhikari after working for him and described him as a “brilliant young man”.
Pradip Jha had worked on Adhikari's election-related work back then
Much like Chandranath Rath, who BJP leaders described as “Mr dependedable” and said that he was involved with Adhikari's election work, Jha also reportedly played a similar role back then in Adhikari's office.
Also read: Car tailed, then execution-style killing: Shocking details in Suvendu Adhikari aide's murder
A Trinamool worker was cited by TOI as saying that Jha was in charge of Adhikari's office and his “MP fund accounts and all of Adhikari's political programs”.
Pradip Jha ‘was drunk’
According to media reports, police found that Jha was drunk when he was found dead. An investigator said that around 700 ml alcohol was found in his stomach, some food particles were found stuck in his windpipe and his lips were bruised, the aforementioned report said.
Chandranath Rath shot dead
However, unlike Jha who was found dead by the police in morning, Adhikari's current personal assistant, who had been working with him since 2021, was shot dead while he was in a car with two other people on Wednesday night and was declared dead by the time he was taken to hospital.
Also read: Ex-IAF employee to Suvendu Adhikari's ‘Mr dependable’ PA, who was Chandranath Rath?
Adhikari, who is now a senior BJP leader in Bengal and is a CM hopeful for the state after he defeated his former boss Mamata Banerjee in Bhabanipur constituency, called Chandranath's killing a “cold-blooded murder”.
“We are not drawing any conclusion at this moment, although it is a fact that TMC has used terror over all these years. The DGP has assured us that a proper investigation is on. He said this was a planned murder committed in cold blood. A car was used in the crime,” Adhikari said.
“We think the incident may or may not be related to politics. Police have found that the murder was planned over the last three or four days. A recce was done. Our party will stand by the victim's family,” he added.
Police are probing the murder and have detained three people in connection with the case.
Suvendu Adhikari's personal bodyguard died in 2018
Another one of Adhikari's close aides, his personal bodyguard Subhabrata Chakraborty, died in October 2018 under mysterious circumstances. It was reportedly suspected that he died by suicide and had allegedly shot him using his service revolver in 2018 at a police barrack in East Medinipur.
At the time of Chakraborty’s death, Adhikari was a leader of Trinamool Congress (TMC) and was serving as the transport minister in her cabinet. In 2020, he joined the BJP.
