Bengal Education Minister Bratya Basu holds meeting with job-losing teachers.

West Bengal Education Minister Bratya Basu on Friday said the government is considering all options, including of legal advice, for a review petition after the Supreme Court cancelled the appointment of some 26,000 teachers and non-teaching staff recruited by the School Service Commission in 2016.

About 13 representatives of job-losing teachers took part in the two-and-a-half-hour meeting with the Education Minister, in which School Service Commission chairman Siddhartha Majumdar was present.

Mr. Basu said the SSC has agreed to publish a list of candidates of 22 lakh in two weeks on the SSC website, and also eligible and tainted candidates as they received those from the CBI list. The Calcutta High Court had asked the federal agency to probe the cash-for-jobs scam in the government-aided schools, and a division bench cancelled the entire 2016 recruitment of teachers and non-teachers, which the Supreme Court upheld last week. Basu said Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has already assured the affected teaching and non-teaching staff of full protection, but at the same time, the government is taking every option, including legal advices before taking any final decision.

The job-losing teachers are demanding publication of the mirror image of the OMR (Optical Mark Recognition) to determine between the eligible and tainted candidates. He urged the teachers to have patience and keep confidence in the leadership of Mamata Banerjee. Basu said some vested interests were politicising the issue. “We are with the affected teachers and we have no difference with their demands“, Basu said and asked the eligible teachers to go to their respective schools and teach students.

On the other hand, West Bengal’s major opposition political parties – the BJP, Left, Congress – and various civic and social organisations on Thursday expressed their solidarity with the teachers rendered jobless after a Supreme Court verdict and condemned the police lathi charge on them in South Kolkata’s Kasba. They opposition parties demanded the Mamata Banerjee government segregate the eligible and non-eligible candidates and restore jobs to the eligible teachers. Meetings and rallies were held in almost all the districts of the state since Thursday morning.

Kolkata was flooded with big and small rallies brought out by the opposition parties. The BJP and its frontal wings like Yuva Morcha and Mahila Morcha, led a protest at Kasba police station to protest the police lathi charge on the agitating teachers on Wednesday. They demanded for those cops who used batons on the teachers at the District Inspector office in Kasba. The saffron brigade organised such protests in other areas of the city and in the districts holding Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee responsible for the state of affairs and demanded her resignation.

The CPI(M) and its youth and students wings also organised rallies condemning the Trinamool Congress government for perpetrating atrocities on the teachers. CPI(M) state secretariat member Sujan Chakraborty slammed the government after the Kolkata Police filed two FIRs against the teachers for indulging in violence in front of the DI office. Chakraborty said the government should suspend police personnel for using batons and kicking a teacher at Kasba. The Congress also organised a protest rally on the city’s education hub College Street condemning the police actions. The SUCI and its youth wing DSO took part in similar rallies separately.

City Mayor and senior cabinet Minister Firhad Hakim said the Left and ultra-Left were trying to strengthen the BJP in the state. He asked why the teachers had gone to Kasba when the Chief Minister assured then full protection from job loss. Earlier the job losers had organised a massive rally to protest the alleged lathi charge and demanded issuance of the mirror image of OMR ( Optical Mark Recognition) sheets so that the School Service Commission could distinguish between the eligible and non-eligible candidates.

Team Maverick