From small-time actor to minister's 'close aide' to a scam co-accused: The rise and fall of Arpita Mukherjee

The Enforcement Directorate recovered nearly Rs 29 crore in cash along with 5 kg of gold jewellery and bars from the second house of Arpita Mukherjee, a close aide of arrested West Bengal minister Partha Chatterjee. 

The fresh recovery came five days after the agency seized more than Rs 21 crore in cash, besides jewellery and foreign exchange from another flat of Mukherjee in south Kolkata's Tollygunge area, following which she was arrested.

In all, nearly Rs 50 crore in cash has been seized so far. The probe agency officials left Arpita Mukherjee's home in the Belgharia area of Kolkata early this morning with 10 trunks of cash after concluding the 18-hour-long raid.

When Arpita shared a Durga Puja committee stage of Naktala Udayan Sangha in Kolkata with Mamata Banerjee in 2019, the West Bengal Chief Minister had heaped praise on the small-time actor. 

“Arpita is doing films in Odia… She is a Bengali girl. She is doing well. I told her to work sincerely,” Banerjee had said back then. 

Face of the puja committee back then, Arpita is again in the spotlight, but for all the wrong reasons. She is now a co-accused with Chatterjee in the school jobs scam. 

After struggling with a slow-paced career in the world of glamour and modelling and acting in a few films, she finally got a toehold in politics as a ‘close aide’ of Chatterjee. In fact, in the 2012 West Bengal Assembly polls, she campaigned for at least three Trinamool Congress candidates. 

According to reports, Arpita started her modelling career in 2004 before she acted in three Bengali films, in which she got side roles. She also acted in a few Odia films. 

According to The Indian Express, Mukherjee became part of the TMC’s celebrity brigade in 2017. Banerjee roped in several celebrities, including Chiranjeet Chakraborty, Dev Adhikary, Nusrat Jahan and Mimi Chakraborty over the years to widen the party’s electoral appeal. 

Arpita is also known to have campaigned for Food Minister Rathin Ghosh in Madhyamgram and Aniruddha Biswas in Kalyani. 

Arpita has two apartments in ‘Club Town Heights’, a building near the Kamarhati municipality office. Both the flats are under lock and key. 

The notice board of the building has a list of members who have defaulted on the maintenance fee — Arpita’s name is on this list with Rs Rs 11,819 against her name.

Reports claim that Mukherjee told Enforcement Direcotrate that the arrested minister used her house to stash money and used it as a "mini bank". She purportedly also admitted that the money came from kickbacks received for school job transfers and for helping colleges get recognition. 

The ED has claimed that during its raids on premises linked to the minister and his aides, it found a list of 48 candidates will roll numbers for posts of primary teacher, documents related to the appointment of Group D staff, including admit cards for recruitment tests, along with a of candidates on the letterhead of a former TMC MLA. 

Asked about the questioning of the minister and Mukherjee, the official said that though she has been "cooperative throughout", Chatterjee is not.