Kolkata, Aug. 17 -- Former deputy speaker of the West Bengal assembly Asis Banerjee was found dead on Sunday morning inside a party office beside his residence at Rampurhat in Bengal's Birbhum district, police said, suspecting it to be a case of suicide. "Some local people found the body hanging inside the party office and informed the police. A long, handwritten note in Bengali was recovered from the room. The body will be sent for mandatory postmortem examination," a Birbhum district police officer said, requesting anonymity. "Although this is a matter of investigation, apparently it seems Banerjee died by suicide. The note, apparently written by Banerjee on his letterhead, says he was never involved in any corruption and that efforts were being made to tarnish his image. The note said he was not involved in the tender process at TRDA," the officer added. Banerjee, 75, was a five-time Trinamool Congress (TMC) MLA and had joined politics when he was a student at Burdwan University. Although he was an associate lecturer of Bengali at Rampurhat College, he won the Rampurhat assembly seat five times in a row from 2001 (when the Left Front was in power) to 2021. He also served as a state agriculture minister in Mamata Banerjee's cabinet and was the assembly's deputy speaker from 2021 until May 2026. The Bharatiya Janata Party recently alleged that financial corruption had been detected at the Tarapith Rampurhat Development Authority (TRDA) and Banerjee was involved in it. Prasanta Banerjee, the deceased's younger brother, told the media that the TMC leader had dinner with family members on Saturday and showed no sign of stress. "There was nothing abnormal in his behaviour. We cannot believe that he died by suicide." Banerjee had lost to BJP's Dhruba Saha this year. "I sought his blessings after winning the seat. He did not appear to be a person who would die by suicide," Saha said....