West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee met with a section of teachers at Kolkata’s Netaji Indoor Stadium on Monday, days after the Supreme Court upheld the cancellation of 25,752 school job appointments made through the 2016 West Bengal School Service Commission (WBSSC) recruitment.
“Please don’t consider that we have accepted it. We are not stone-hearted, and I can even be jailed for saying this, but I don’t care,” says West Bengal CM Mamata, addressing people who lost their jobs as teaching and non-teaching staffers in West Bengal government-run and aided schools after a Supreme Court order.
“We are victims of a system we had no hand in manipulating,” said Yasmin Parveen, one of the dismissed teachers, outside the venue. “We need nothing but our jobs back.” On stage with the Chief Minister were 20 teachers—part of a group created by Mamata herself—along with West Bengal Education Minister Bratya Basu. The move has sparked criticism from the Opposition.
BJP leader Suvendu Adhikari accused Mamata Banerjee of favouring only a select few. “She is not the Chief Minister but TMC’s leader. If she was Chief Minister, then she would have met all the teachers, not only some,” he said. Suvendu Adhikari is sitting in protest with BJP MLA’s inside state assembly with “Mamata Chor” posters even as Mamata Banerjee meets teachers who have lost job. The controversy began with the 2016 SSC recruitment drive, which received 2.3 million applications for 24,640 vacancies. However, more appointment letters were issued than available posts.
