KOLKATA: The sudden burst of communal violence in different parts of West Bengal, ostensibly in protest of the Waqf Amendment Act, may just be a ploy to divert attention from the growing outrage over the Trinamool Congress’ role which forced the Supreme Court to order the en masse sacking of school teachers and staff, say BJP leaders.
BJP leader Dilip Ghosh said: “Why should there be violence after the Waqf Bill has become law after receiving the President’s assent? This is Mamata’s plan to divert public attention from the sacking of 26,000 teachers. After all, everybody knows that the Trinamool Congress is responsible for the mass sackings.”
Leader of the Opposition Suvendu Adhikari told The Sunday Guardian: “The Sanatani people of West Bengal are suffering because of the criminal behaviour of Mamata Banerjee and her goons. Mamata Banerjee has planned it all.”
Last year, a Calcutta High Court Division Bench had scrapped the entire selection panel
The High Court decision was upheld by the Supreme Court bench of Chief Justice of India Sanjeev Khanna and Justice Sanjay Kumar last week.
Following mass outrage, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee convened a meeting with the job losers and promised that the State Government would approach the Supreme Court next week with a review petition.
On Wednesday, visuals of policemen hitting and kicking protesting teachers on social media sparked public outrage.Sensing the public outrage, State Education Minister Bratya Basu and the School Service Commission Chairman Siddhartha Mazumdar met a delegation of teachers on Friday. After hours of deliberation with Bratya Basu and his team, the protesting teaching and non-teaching staff returned with the assurance that the administration was working towards segregating the “tainted” and “untainted” candidates. In more than 20 hearings before the Calcutta High Court and the Supreme Court, the State Government had claimed it was not possible to segregate the two.
Basu said the process should be completed within two weeks.
“We went to the meeting with two main demands. Segregation of the list of candidates into tainted and untainted, and publish the mirror image of the OMR sheets,” said Sujay Sardar, a non-teaching staff member who lost his job after last week’s Supreme Court verdict. “They have assured us that the Government is working on segregating the two and it will be published by April 21.”
Political scientist Biswanath Chakraborty said: “The Government has been badly exposed by the Supreme Court verdict. The involvement of the Trinamool Congress leaders is now an open secret. So, Mamata is facing a huge challenge in the run-up to next year’s Assembly elections.”