Trinamool Congress leader and two-time MLA from West Bengal's Sandeshkhali, Sukumar Mahata's vehicle was involved in a fatal road accident that claimed the lives of two people on Wednesday afternoon.
Mahata's Scorpio collided with an electric rickshaw in the Boyarmari area along Basanti Highway, killing two occupants of the toto. The ex-MLA was not in the vehicle at the time of the accident, Bengali media reports said.
In the impact of the collision, the Scorpio plunged into a pond. Local media reports said the condition of Mahata's driver, who was behind the wheel at the time of the incident, was not immediately known. He was on his way to pick up Mahata for a doctor's appointment when tragedy struck.
“I was at school. I asked them to bring the car as I was going to the hospital. Two totos were competing with each other when this incident occurred. When an accident happens, there is little we can do. However, I stand with the families of the deceased. I have sent people there,” Sukumar Mahata reportedly told TV9 Bangla. Sukumar Mahata is reportedly a school teacher by profession.
According to media reports, the road was not narrow at the accident spot. On the contrary, the road is quite wide at the location, raising questions about how the Scorpio collided with the toto. Police officers from the Rajbari outpost under Nazat police station rushed to the scene. The victims' bodies will be sent to Minakhan Hospital for postmortem, TV9 Bangla said.
In the recently held Assembly elections, the BJP's Sanat Sardar defeated Trinamool's Jharna Sardar by a margin of 17,510 votes in Sandeshkhali.
