Teacher Examination Board Corruption Complaint in West Bengal; One of Mamata’s key commanders and senior minister Partha Chatterjee was arrested
Santanu Chowdhury
Mamata close aide Partha Chatterjee, Bengal minister who is in eye of SSC scam storm: West Bengal state commerce and industry minister and senior Trinamool Congress leader Partha Chatterjee has been booked by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) for alleged irregularities in the teacher recruitment process in the state School Staff Selection Commission (SSC). ) was arrested on Saturday. Partha Chatterjee is one of the most trusted generals of Chief Minister and Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee.
Apart from being a key (heavyweight) minister handling various key portfolios, Partha Chatterjee is also the general secretary of the Trinamool Congress. This is the most important party post after party president Mamata Banerjee and her son-in-law and party national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee.
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Partha Chatterjee, 69, one of Kolkata’s most prominent Trinamool Congress faces and a five-time MLA from Kolkata’s Behala Paskim assembly constituency, has been Mamata’s “trusted” leader when it comes to handling party affairs in West Bengal. Partha Chatterjee plays a key role in overall party organizational matters, from constitution of Trinamool Congress district committees to formulation of election strategies. He is also a member of the disciplinary committee of the party.
Partha Chatterjee worked as an HR specialist at Andrew Yule before entering politics decades ago. After Mamata Banerjee left the Congress and formed the Trinamool Congress in 1998, Partha Chatterjee joined the party. He was first elected MLA from Behala Paschim in 2001, contesting from the Trinamool Congress, and has been winning from the constituency since then. Partha Chatterjee was the Leader of Opposition in the West Bengal Legislative Assembly during the CPM-led Left Front government from 2006 to 2011.
When the Trinamool Congress overthrew 34 years of left-wing rule in West Bengal and formed its government in 2011, Partha Chatterjee, who won the election by a margin of 59,021 votes, was inducted into Mamata’s cabinet. Partha Chatterjee was made Minister of Commerce and Industry, Public Enterprises, Information Technology and Electronics and Legislative Affairs by Mamata. Later he was also nominated as the Deputy Speaker of the Assembly.
In 2014, Partha Chatterjee was appointed as the Minister of Higher Education and School Education. He held these portfolios till 2021, at the center of the current SSC scandal. In 2021, he was replaced by another minister, Pratya Basu, for higher education and school education. After the Trinamool Congress won the 2021 assembly elections and Mamata was sworn in for a third consecutive term as chief minister, she again allocated the portfolios of commerce and industry, information technology and electronics to Partha Chatterjee.
It was during Partha Chatterjee’s tenure as the state education minister that the alleged teacher recruitment scandal in the state School Staff Selection Commission (SSC) and the Board of Elementary Education took place. Partha Chatterjee is facing allegations of corruption for allegedly ensuring jobs to candidates with low marks in return for monetary benefits instead of those who make it to the merit list.
After the Calcutta High Court ordered a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) probe into the SSC scam, on May 18, Partha Chatterjee appeared before the central agency, the CBI, into the alleged irregular appointment of teachers in government schools.
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