A Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MLA from West Bengal was found dead in an open varandah outside a shop in a market close to his house at Balia in Raigunj of Uttar Dinajpur district. The MLA from Hemtabad Assembly seat, Debendra Nath Ray, was found with a suicide note, said police. Police said that two persons had been named in the suicide note and a probe is on.
His family members however, said that he was called by someone at around 1 am, and had left his house due to this reason. Local people spotted the body in the morning.
BJP chief JP Nadda took to Twitter to condemn the death. The Bengal wing of the BJP has alleged that he was murdered, and demanded a probe by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI). The state government has handed over the probe to the West Bengal Police’s Criminal Investigation Department (CID).
Ray had contested the Hemtabad assembly seat on a CPM ticket (backed by the Congress) in 2016, and had switched to the BJP in 2019 after the Lok Sabha elections.
