KOLKATA: Asish Banerjee, the former deputy speaker of the West Bengal assembly, was found dead on Sunday morning at a Trinamool Congress office in Rampurhat, Birbhum district.His body was found hanging and was sent for a post-mortem examination, police said. The circumstances surrounding his death are not yet clear.According to news agency PTI, a purported suicide note was also recovered from office located near his residence.Banerjee served as deputy speaker during TMC chief Mamata Banerjee’s tenure as West Bengal chief minister. He was a five-time MLA from Rampurhat.Earlier this year, Banerjee resigned as chairman of the TMC’s Birbhum district core committee.“I will continue to remain as the party’s general member,” the former Rampurhat MLA had said.Banerjee had also said he was in agreement with former Lavpur MLA Abhijit Sinha, who resigned from the Birbhum district core committee, alleging that it was not functioning in accordance with its political responsibilities during the assembly election.Both Banerjee and Sinha lost the assembly polls.The BJP won six of Birbhum’s 11 assembly constituencies in the 2026 polls, while the TMC won five.In the 2021 assembly election, the TMC had won 10 seats in the district and the BJP one.Who was Asish Banerjee?Banerjee, a veteran TMC leader, represented Rampurhat in the state assembly continuously from 2001 to 2026. He served as deputy speaker and also held ministerial portfolios, including school education and agriculture, in the Mamata Banerjee government.He contested the 2026 assembly election from Rampurhat on a TMC ticket but lost to BJP’s Dhruva Saha by more than 24,000 votes. Party sources said Banerjee had not been particularly active in politics following his electoral defeat.
