SSC recruitment corruption: Left-Front, Cong to conduct mass protest rally in city on April 24

After the Calcutta High Court cancelled the illegal recruitment of 25,753 teachers and nonteaching staff by 2016 School Service Commission (SSC), the Left-Front and the Congress have decided to conduct a mass protest rally in the city on Wednesday demanding action against the accused in the corruption.

On Tuesday, the Left Front announced that a mass protest rally will be organised along with Indian National Congress (INC) in the city on April 24 from the Lenin statue at Dharmatala to College Square at 5 pm. In their list of demands that would be raised at the rally, the party said that all the accused in the SSC recruitment corruption need to be identified and brought to book. Secondly, the SSC has to adopt a legitimate and transparent method to publish a list and reinstate the candidates with merit.

It was further demanded that the officials and politicians involved in tampering OMR sheets need to be punished. The list highlighted that one of the biggest demands will be the resignation of Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee under whose leadership the entire corruption allegedly took place.

Ever since the HC order, Opposition parties have been demanding Banerjee’s resignation alleging that the corruption could not have taken place without her knowledge and even if she denies knowledge of it that is all the more reason as to why she should resign. On Monday, Trinamool Congress (TMC) leader Kunal Ghosh told the media things wouldn’t have come to such a pass had action been taken at the right time to stop certain people who have brought a bad name to the party through their corruption. Ghosh specifically accused former Education minister Partha Chatterjee, now behind bars in PMLA case related to the illegal recruitment, for the consequences the state is now facing.

Terming the court order as “unfortunate”, Ghosh said action must be taken against the accused but not at the cost of merited candidates who deserved the jobs.

He said the state government is trying its best to recruit the persons who had merit and hoped the court will take this into consideration.