A day after veteran Bengali actor and former TMC MP Tapas Paul passed away due to cardiac arrest, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Wednesday blamed BJP-led government at the Centre for his death.

Claiming that pressure from the Centre led to Pal's death, Banerjee said that he was put in jail for 13 months but no one knows what crime he committed.

"People are being jailed but Central agencies have not been able to prove their involvement or conclude what crime they committed. If someone commits a crime, they must face action. But we still don’t know what crime did Tapas Pal & others commit," she said.

The TMC supremo said that he was part of an entertainment channel and this was not the time and age for Paul to die.

The CM also said that the government's pressure has claimed many lives. "Central govt's pressure has claimed so many lives. Three people died due to this pressure by the agencies. Sultan Ahmed (former TMC MP), TMC MP Prasun Banerjee’s wife passed away and now Tapas Pal," she was quoted by news agency ANI as saying.

West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee: People are being jailed but Central agencies have not been able to prove their involvement or conclude what crime they committed. If someone commits a crime, they must face action. But we still don’t know what crime did Tapas Pal & others commit. https://t.co/CsiySXr4wC

— ANI (@ANI) February 19, 2020

Tapas passed away on Tuesday due to cardiac arrest. He was 61.

Pal was in Mumbai to visit his daughter where he complained of chest pain. He was rushed to a hospital in Juhu where he died at around 4 AM.

He had been suffering from heart ailments and was hospitalised several times during the past two years.

As he joined politics, it was his star power in the 2009 Assembly Elections in West Bengal that helped TMC sweep the polls and elect Mamata Banerjee as the chief minister of the state. Pal is a two-time MP from Krishnanagar and MLA from Alipore.