WBSSC: One incident after another has come to light regarding the State Teacher Recruitment (SSC) corruption. Nearly a year after the cash recovery and arrest of former state education minister Partha Chatterjee in the West Bengal school recruitment scam, probes by central investigative agencies have yielded a maze of FIRs and the arrest of nearly a dozen leaders of the ruling Trinamool Congress.
Firdous Samim, who is credited with uncovering the scam by bringing recruitment irregularities before the Calcutta High Court, took a few moments to recall the number of FIRs filed by central investigation agencies.
Ferdous Samim said, “Central agencies have filed at least eight FIRs at various stages of recruitment. Irregularities have also occurred in recruitment of teachers at primary, secondary, higher secondary levels and recruitment of Group C and Group D in state-run schools.”
Advocates and political observers who have been monitoring the recruitment scam issue said it is a classic case where recruitment agencies have admitted that the marks obtained by the candidates on the OMR (Optical Mark Reader) sheets have been manipulated.
"Around 9,000 cases of OMR manipulation, where the marks obtained by the candidates were manipulated," Samim added. He described the recruitment scam as a "public education scam" in which a wide network of touts and agents operate across the state, offering jobs at various levels in state-run schools in return for money.
Despite the victory in West Bengal's panchayat elections, the burden of the scandal has weighed heavily on the Trinamool Congress leadership. Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee could not restrain herself from mentioning corruption allegations against her government while targeting the Narendra Modi government on the eve of Independence Day.
Addressing a gathering of party supporters on August 14, the Chief Minister said, "Only those who work make mistakes. Sometimes even our mothers and sisters add a pinch of extra salt by mistake while cooking."
Along with former Trinamool Congress heavyweight Mr Chatterjee, party MLAs like Manik Bhattacharya and Jeevan Krishna Saha are behind bars for their alleged involvement in the scam along with sacked Trinamool leaders like Santanu Kundu and Kuntal Ghosh. Officials of various boards and councils of the state education department have been arrested for their alleged role in the scam.
Despite the arrests and FIRs, thousands of job aspirants are still protesting on city streets, holding rallies and organizing flash demonstrations at metro stations and important intersections in the city.
Mobidullah Mollah, a youth from North 24 Parganas, said, “I gave an interview for the post of upper primary class teacher in 2019. Since then the panel has been stuck for more than 426 days. I, along with fellow job aspirants, are protesting in Kolkata to demand our appointment.”
Mr. Mollah said that for him and thousands of other job seekers, the arrest of Trinamool leaders or the FIR did not matter. "There have been irregularities in the recruitment process and the only way to correct it is to hire qualified candidates," he said.
Opposition political parties, particularly the BJP, CPI(M) and Congress, opined that Mr. Chatterjee could not be the mastermind of the scam and that the ruling party's top brass should be held accountable. Mr Chatterjee, during the court appearance, said that only as a "minister he was not the appointing authority".
A year after the scandal came to light, the question dominating political circles is whether it will have a long-term impact on state politics. Vishwanath Chakraborty, professor of political science at Rabindra Bharati University, noted that the scandal had tarnished the image of the Trinamool Congress. However, Professor Chakraborty feels that this will not have the kind of impact on state politics that was felt almost a year ago when the recruitment scam rocked state politics.
Scams like Sarada and the Rose Valley chit fund rocked the Trinamool Congress in 2013-14 but the party's stay in power in the state over the past 12 years has seen the party's vote share rise.
Mr. Samim, however, feels that the impact of the recruitment scam on state politics will be greater than that of the chit fund scam. "A large number of victims of recruitment scams are educated middle class and not only those who applied for jobs but also those hoping for government jobs were shocked by allegations of cash for jobs," said the advocate.
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