WB: Why Mamata Banerjee Will Find it Hard to Detach Herself From SSC Scam

Kolkata: Recently, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee used a cultural programme’s podium to lead a counterattack on the Left and other Opposition parties that have been questioning her ‘close relationship’ with tainted Trinamool Congress leader Partha Chatterjee and her own ‘responsibility’ behind the SSC (School Service Commission) recruitment scam.

On Thursday, Chatterjee was removed from Mamata Bannerjee’s cabinet after a row erupted over Rs 50 crore in hard cash recovered from the house of Arpita Mukherjee, a budding actress and close confidante of Chatterjee. It is alleged that the sacked industries minister and TMC state general secretary, was the ‘kingpin of the scam’ which gave jobs in lieu of money in the state education department as school teachers.

Though Banerjee in the past had tried not to detach herself from the misdeeds of her party's leaders (with the exception of the Narada sting case just before the 2016 Assembly elections), this time she has spoken of ‘detachment’ from her aide’s misdeeds.

It is yet to be ascertained whether the huge SSC job scam was the handiwork of one person or two persons or more. However, the scam has resulted in bringing to the fore a well-oiled machinery consisting of middlemen -- most of them allegedly TMC leaders.

Though the Chief Minister has feigned complete ignorance about the scam till now, some TMC sources believe that it was in fact Banerjee herself made inquiries about teaching positions from Chatterjee.

A former TMC legislator, Anantadeb Adhikary, has on record alleged Banerjee’s “involvement” in the scam. He told reporters that the CM used to “channelise recommendation letters” for teaching posts to Chatterjee.

Adhikary further alleged that each legislator was given a quota of five, to be recruited through “illegal means” in school teaching positions.

“Chatterjee’s tenure as state education minister from 2016 -2021, was a central time period of the scam and even after demonetisation, the availability of such a huge amount of hard cash shows the effectiveness of the scamsters. This cannot be the handiwork of a single individual but is a well chalked out thought process and machinery supported by the party am.  At the helm of the party is Mamata Banerjee, and she cannot absolve her share in the crime,” a political commentator told NewsClick. 

As the noose around the Chief Minister’s neck is tightening, she has challenged the Enforcement Directorate’s (ED) officers to come and visit her house to “unearth money”.

However, political observers say that without direct approval from the Chief Minister, it is seemingly impossible for a minister like Chatterjee (who is known to be a yes-man), to single-handedly run such a huge racket whose tentacles are spread from the hills of North Bengal to Sundarbans in the  South Bengal.

Currently, ED officers are busy unearthing the money that has been laundered through the Partha-Arpita nexus and has yet not named the Chief Minister, even though Chatterjee upon his arrest, in the arrest memo, has given the name of the current Chief Minister as ‘closest to kin’.