Bengal violence fresh chapter: A civic poll, two deaths, and a popular leader

Kandu won two more consecutive local elections and was elected Jhalda Municipality chairperson in 2005. But continued political reversals — the Forward Bloc controlled the civic body but lost out to the Congress in 2015 — made Kandu jump ship to the BJP before the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. After the saffron party failed to oust the Trinamool Congress (TMC), he moved to the Congress last year.

“Tapan Kandu was a very energetic person who loved to work. He never refused to help people. That is why he was popular. He was a great social worker and did many things for Jhalda in the past 20 years,” said the BJP’s Purulia MLA Sudip Mukherjee, who was earlier with the Congress.

In February, the Jhalda civic polls returned a hung verdict as both the Congress and the TMC won five seats each. The two other seats went to Independents. Among the Congress’s winning councillors were Kandu and Purnima.

Kandu was shot dead on March 13 when he was out for an evening walk near his home. On Tuesday, the TMC came to power in the civic body with the help of the Independent councillors. The same day, Kandu’s family released an audio clip alleging that a local Trinamool worker and a policeman had been threatening and coercing Kandu to join the ruling party.

The family has alleged that the TMC believed that if it got Kandu his wife would also join, thus bolstering its numbers. The ruling party has dismissed the allegations. On Monday, the Calcutta High Court ordered a CBI investigation into the murder and on Wednesday an eyewitness was found dead. While the police have claimed that Niranjan Baishnab died by suicide, his family has alleged that the police mentally tortured him during questioning.