Bengal’s recruitment protests fizzle out post polls, but aspirants pin hopes on SC verdict
The BJP had made the SSC recruitment an election issue, but the Trinamool Congress’s victory in 29 Lok Sabha seats indicates that the issue did not resonate with the electorate
In the run-up to the Lok Sabha election, the Mahatma Gandhi statue on Kolkata’s Mayo Road was the site of massive demonstrations against alleged irregularities in the teachers’ recruitment by the School Service Commission (SSC) in West Bengal.
Dubbed the ‘SSC scam’ by the Opposition, it was one of the poll planks on which the Bharatiya Janata Party fought the election in the State. But the Trinamool Congress’s performance in the polls, extreme heat and dwindling finances of the job aspirants have driven the once-vociferous protesters away. The venue, abuzz with TV crew and police personnel, now bears a deserted look.
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Abhishek Sen, 37, a waitlisted aspirant is among the handful of protesters holding fort. “The fight has been going on since 2019. It is not possible for most people to keep their spirits high and continue fighting amid increasing expenses,” said Mr. Sen. He said most job aspirants spend a lot to travel to Kolkata from other districts to take part in the protest.
“There are candidates from Uttar Dinajpur, Malda and North 24 Parganas who have been coming here daily to protest against the recruitment process. We have spent years fighting for our jobs with zero alternative income,” he said.
Many job aspirants from the districts had rented rooms in the southern fringes of the city to commute to the protest venue. Till recently, Kudrat-e-Kabir, 34, a resident of Chanchal in Malda district, had been living with 40 candidates from North Bengal in Narendrapur and Baruipur. “We have no income. Our responsibilities towards our families are increasing. We can no longer afford this. So many of us have come back home for good,” Mr. Kabir said. He said some aspirants still travel to Kolkata from faraway districts to attend the protest once a week.
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For two years, the State’s politics had revolved around the recruitment ‘scam’, especially after the arrest of former Education Minister Partha Chatterjee in July 2022. Since then, several Trinamool leaders have been arrested in connection with the case that involves the recruitment of teachers and non-teaching staff in State-run schools. But the Trinamool’s resounding victory in 29 Lok Sabha seats indicates that the issue has not resonated with the people.
On April 22, the Calcutta High Court ordered the cancellation of the 2016 recruitment panel that hired 25,753 teachers and non-teaching staff. The bench said OMR sheets were manipulated that year. However, the Supreme Court, on May 7, stayed the high court order, saying “it would be unfair to set aside all the appointments if the tainted and untainted ones can be segregated”.
The CPI(M)‘s Rajya Sabha member and senior advocate Bikash Ranjan Bhattacharya, who had represented the job aspirants in the high court, told The Hindu, “The Supreme Court has listed the case for July 16. It will then become clear if the 2016 recruitment panel will be cancelled, and if the deserving and undeserving candidates would be segregated. If the undeserving candidates are filtered out, vacancies might open up which can then be filled by aspirants.”
At the Matangini Hazra statue near Maidan, the crowd of protesters, who were expecting appointments as primary and upper primary teachers, has dwindled from hundreds to just three.
Prasenjit Mal, 38, said he has been delivering gas cylinders since 2014 to sustain himself. “I wanted to be a teacher, but I am still delivering gas cylinders to make a living. I am left with no other option. I have ageing parents and I need to put food on the table,” Mr. Mal said, adding he has to take leave from work to come to the protest venue. “But how many times can I keep asking for leave?”
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Priyali Pramanik, 34, another protester, said the heat wave this summer and a feeling of hopelessness have hit the movement hard. “Many job aspirants used to leave behind their parents, spouses, in-laws and children to come to the protest every day. But for how long can our families bear this,” she asks. “Most abandoned the protest because of hopelessness. Everyone had thought that before the elections, the Chief Minister will take some initiative to ensure justice. But now that the vote is over, the optimism has gone down,” she said.
But keeping the protest alive is their only way forward. Many candidates have spent four years protesting to become a teacher. And as Mr. Kabir and his fellow protester Abhishek Sen put it, till the final verdict in the Supreme Court, the agitation will go on.
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