Trinamool leader Kunal Ghosh reveals party’s knowledge of school jobs scam.

Mr Ghosh was removed from his post hours after he shared a stage with a BJP Lok Sabha candidate and praised him on Wednesday. In an interview with Bengali news channel ABP Ananda, he stated that the TMC was well aware of large-scale corruption and extortion in the school education department even before the 2021 assembly polls. He also mentioned that this information led to the shift of Partha Chatterjee from the education ministry to the industry department after the party returned to power for the third consecutive term in 2021. This statement came a week after the Calcutta High Court declared the recruitment process of the State Level Selection Test-2016 (SLST) in West Bengal government-sponsored and aided schools as “null and void,” resulting in the cancellation of all appointments made through it.

This led to around 26,000 people losing their jobs. The TMC leadership had previously claimed they were not aware of the scam until Chatterjee’s arrest in 2022. Chatterjee, a TMC leader, was arrested by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) in July 2022 for his alleged involvement in the SSC scam, after which he was removed from the state cabinet. Several other TMC leaders and TMC MLA were also arrested by the CBI for their alleged involvement in the scam.

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