WB SSC scam: Sack Partha Chatterjee immediately, Congress urges Mamata Banerjee

Kolkata: After BJP and the CPI-M, senior Congress leader Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury has now demanded West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee "to immediately sack" Minister Partha Chatterjee, who has been arrested by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) in connection with the teacher’s recruitment scam in the state.

Chowdhury has also written a letter to the Bengal Chief Minister in which he alleged that “irregularities in the recruitment process by the School Service Commission (SSC) is "an open secret.”

"I am writing this letter regarding the misdeed of Partha Chatterjee. He was the Education Minister from 2014-2021 during which the alleged irregularities in teacher recruitment occurred. It was only after the court's intervention that investigation agencies started acting upon it. It is a huge blot on the government of West Bengal. I urge you to sack Partha Chatterjee from ministership immediately," the Bengal Congress president said.

It may be recalled that Chatterjee was arrested by the ED on Saturday. A city court on Monday granted 10 days' ED custody of the senior Trinamool Congress leader and his alleged associate Arpita Mukherjee, who was also arrested in connection with the scam.

The ED found many disproportionate assets of Partha Chatterjee since his arrest, of which were three flats in West Bengal's Diamond City. The arrest of Partha Chatterjee followed Rs 21 crore in cash and jewellery worth above Rs 1 crore being recovered from the Kolkata residence of Arpita Mukherjee, a close aide of the former education minister.

The ED raided Arpita Mukerjee's house in connection with an alleged teacher recruitment scam in West Bengal. "The said amount is suspected to be proceeds of crime of the said SSC scam," the probe agency had said in a statement.