West Bengal Teacher recruitment scam: BJP stages walkout from assembly

KOLKATA: The BJP on Monday staged a walkout from the West Bengal assembly when its demand for tabling an adjournment motion to discuss the entire teaching job scandal issue in state schools was rejected.

Speaker Biman Bandyopadhyay turned down the plea of the opposition party on the ground that the matter is sub-judice. The Calcutta High Court has directed CBI to investigate on whose instruction an application was filed before it by the West Bengal Central School Service Commission (SSC) to secure the jobs of the staff illegally recruited for state government-sponsored and aided educational institutions by creating extra posts. The CBI is also probing illegal appointments in such schools on earlier orders of the high court.

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Holding placards which alleged the involvement of senior TMC leaders and state ministers in "the job racket", BJP members staged a walkout shouting anti-government slogans as the demand was turned out. Leader of Opposition Suvendu Adhikari said, "After the indictment of the honourable high court, the complicity of several ministers in the state cabinet has been confirmed.

This government wants ineligible candidates to continue jobs in schools and draw salaries while hundreds of qualified candidates are agitating demanding justice for years." "If we cannot discuss the matter in the state legislative assembly, where should it be deliberated upon? Hence we staged the protest," he said.

Reacting to BJP’s walkout, senior minister Sashi Panja told PTI in the lobby that the opposition only wants to disrupt the proceedings of the house. "They don't believe in constructive politics. The BJP has no respect for parliamentary democracy," she added. BJP members returned to the House later.