Kolkata, July 13 (IANS) Tirthankar Ghosh, the defeated Trinamool Congress candidate from Panihati Assembly constituency in the North 24 Parganas district of West Bengal in the recently concluded election, was arrested on Monday on charges of involvement in various anti-social activities, such as alleged lottery scam, extortion and threatening people with firearms.

Tirthankar, the son of Nirmal Ghosh, the former Chief Whip of Trinamool Congress in the West Bengal Assembly during the previous Mamata Banerjee-led regime, had been absconding for quite some time. The cops of the Khardah Police Station in North 24 Parganas district were trying to track him.

Finally, on being tipped off by their sources, a team of cops from the same police station raided a hideout and arrested Tirthankar. He will be presented at a district court in North 24 Parganas later in the day, and the public prosecutor will seek his police custody in the matter.

After Nirmal Ghosh was elected from Panihati in 2021 for the third consecutive term, his and his son’s names surfaced in post-poll violence in the area.

In addition, Nirmal Ghosh and Tirthankar were accused of forcefully taking away around Rs one crore that a local driver had won in a lottery.

The police were looking for them in that lottery case. Although both were hiding, there was a lot of speculation over Nirmal Ghosh’s participation on Saturday in a meeting of the “rebel but majority” faction in the Trinamool Congress led by the expelled party legislator, Ritabrata Banerjee.

However, later Ritabrata ruled out the possibility of Nirmal Ghosh being a part of his team and said there were reservations about the former Chief Whip.

In the recently concluded Assembly election, Trinamool Congress nominated Tirthankar in place of his father from Panihati. But he was defeated by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) candidate, Ratna Debnath, by a margin of over 28,000 votes.

Debnath is the mother of the woman doctor at state-run R.G. Kar Medical College and Hospital in Kolkata who became a victim of ghastly rape and murder within the hospital premises in August 2024.

–IANS

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