Meet Alapan Bandyopadhyay, a 'good boy' in the Centre's bad books

Bandyopadhyay was recently in the midst of a political storm. At the heart of the controversy is a review meeting by PM Modi for which Bandyopadhyay and CM Mamata Banerjee arrived late

It was 4 am when West Bengal Chief Secretary Alapan Bandyo­padhyay returned home from the crematorium after performing the last rites of his 56-year-old brother, Anjan Bandyo­padhyay. The popular television anchor and editor of Bengali news channel, Zee 24 Ghanta, succumbed to Covid-related complications on May 16, weeks after he had recovered and was discharged from hospital.

The siblings from Balijuri village, Asansol, in the Bardhaman district of West Bengal, were about four years apart. But the tragedy did not deter the bure­au­crat brother from reporting at Nabanna, the state secretariat, the next morning. With Covid-19 cases mounting at that