BJP MP Roopa Ganguly's son rams car into Kolkata club, arrested

Actor-turned-BJP MP Roopa Ganguly’s son was sent to one-day police custody on Friday (August 16)  for allegedly ramming his car into the wall of prestigious south Kolkata club here.

The order came after the police produced 21-year-old Akash Mukherjee before the Alipur court. Police had taken the youth into custody after the incident around 9.15 pm on Thursday (August 15) and formally arrested him on Friday morning on the charge of rash driving and damaging properties, a senior officer said.

No casualty has been reported in the incident, he added. The police officer said that his blood sample has been collected to check if it was a case of drunk driving. The car will be sent for a forensic test, the officer said.

The incident involving the son of a senior state BJP leader has taken political colour. The 52-year-old Roopa Ganguly is an actress, playback singer and politician. She is best known for her rendition of Draupadi in B R Chopra’s hit television series Mahabharat (1988).

She was nominated as a member of Rajya Sabha in 2015. West Bengal BJP president Dilip Ghosh on Friday accused Trinamool Congress (TMC) of trying to politicise the accident of
Roopa Ganguly’s son and warned that if police tried to implicate him in false cases then BJP too would legally engage itself into it.

“There has been an accident. Roopa didi herself had called the police. The law will take its own course we have nothing to say about it. We just want to say that the matter should not be politicised. We have not sought any special privileges,” Ghosh told reporters.

“The Trinamool Congress is unnecessarily trying to politicise the matter. We hope the police would investigate impartially. But if the police administration tries to implicate him in false case by saying he was drunk, we (BJP) too would get involved in the matter”, Ghosh said.

His comments came in the backdrop of local TMC councillor of the area, where the accident happened, Archana Dasgupta, alleging that Akash Mukherjee was drunk and he could have crushed kids playing on the streets under the wheels.

“There are kids who stay here on the streets. They play here. It could have caused a major accident. He was drunk when he was rescued. He has a history of reckless driving, ” Dasgupta said.

About the accident, the locals claimed that many people had a narrow escape as the four-wheeler was being driven at a breakneck speed.

The car crashed into the boundary wall of Royal Calcutta Golf Club (RCGC) in the citys Golf Green area, breaking a portion of it, with the driver still trapped inside, they said.

Mukherjee, however, came out of the black sedan unscathed with the help of his father, who had rushed out of their apartment nearby on hearing the commotion.

In a tweet, Ganguly said on Thursday that law should take its own course. “My son has met with an accident near MY RESIDENCE. I called the police to take care of it with all legal implications… No favours/ politics plz. I love my son & will tk cr of him BUT, LAW SHOULD TAKE ITS OWN COURSE (sic),” she said.

Tagging Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the tweet, the Rajya Sabha member said in Hindi, “I didn’t commit any mistake, neither do I tolerate one. I am not up for sale.”