In yet another suspected panchayat poll-related murder a booth-level BJP leader at Balpai village of Sabang in West Midnapore district was on Thursday found hanging at his residence. The BJP worker who earlier received threats from the local Trinamool Congress men who asked him not to campaign in the elections had been missing since the past couple of days, sources said. This was the 12th death since panchayat elections were declared about 20 days ago.

Local police officials said that the body of Dipak Samanta, 35, the booth president of BJP was found hanging from the ceiling of his residence. "He is a BJP member … we are investigating the matter," a senior police officer said, adding murder angle was not being ruled out.

Samanta's wife told the media that his husband paid the price of not surrendering to the TMC and not joining their side. Alleging that the family had earlier received a white saree and some sweets and flowers — things that are given to widows after the death of their husbands — from unknown senders his wife said that his husband had refused to withdraw from the campaign.

Tanmoy Das, a BJP leader from Ghatal, a local sub-divisional town, said the family had lodged a complaint with the police about the incident but no action was taken. A TMC man named MK Maiti was issuing threats to him regularly, family members were quoted as saying.

The local TMC goons had socially ostracized Samanta in order to put pressure on him for changing sides. "After 2021 Assembly elections they had even captured his lands … the TMC men were cultivating his lands as a punishment for working for the BJP … and this time they started issuing life threats to him and finally killed him," the BJP leader said. "They had reported to the police about the white a saree being sent to them and about the regular threats he was receiving to either leave politics or join the TMC … but the police would not take any action," he said, demanding a CBI investigation into the murder. In the past several years about half-a-dozen BJP leaders have hung to death.

State BJP leader and former West Midnapore police SP Bharati Ghosh who rushed to the spot said "the police know the murderers but they will do nothing to them," adding "it is a clear case of cold-blooded murder and the BJP will not sit quite until the guilty are brought to book." TMC leadership however denied any link with the murder. Ajit Maiti a senior district level TMC leader said "the TMC is in no way connected to the death."