West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee strongly criticised the recent cancellation of over 25,000 school jobs calling it “gross injustice” and accused the BJP of orchestrating the move to prevent these individuals from being deployed for poll duties.
Addressing an election rally in the Medinipur Lok Sabha constituency in Paschim Medinipur district, Banerjee expressed concern over the repercussions of such a large-scale job cancellation on the functioning of schools. The recent decision by the Calcutta High Court to nullify the recruitment process of the State Level Selection Test-2016 (SLST) in West Bengal government-sponsored and aided schools as “null and void,” subsequently ordering the annulment of all appointments made through this process has resulted in the revocation of all appointments made through this process.
Banerjee emphasized the adverse impact of this decision, stating, “If someone has made a mistake, it can be rectified, but snatching away 25,000 jobs is a gross injustice. How will the schools operate effectively if a significant number of teachers are left unemployed?”
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The Chief Minister went further to allege that the BJP orchestrated the job cancellations strategically to prevent these individuals from participating in election duties and attributed the move to a calculated strategy by the BJP aimed at manipulating poll deployments. “This is a ploy by the BJP. The removal of these jobs aims to ensure that these individuals cannot be utilized for poll duty during elections. Instead, central government employees, aligned with the saffron camp, are intended to replace them,” Mamata Banerjee asserted.
Furthermore, Banerjee alleged that the mass job cancellations were intended to prevent these individuals from being assigned election duties, facilitating the engagement of central government employees aligned with the saffron camp. “So many jobs have been stripped away to ensure that these job losers are not utilized for election duties, enabling the deployment of central government employees who will work at the BJP’s behest,” she added.
As West Bengal remains a focal point of political contention, the repercussions of this development resonate within the electoral discourse, reflecting the complex interplay between governance, judicial interventions, and electoral strategies in the run-up to critical polls in the state.
