Jobless teachers at Sourav Ganguly's door with protest rally invite, police take them away

Kolkata: A group of teachers rendered jobless by a recent Supreme Court verdict on Tuesday went to the residence of former Indian cricket captain Sourav Ganguly to invite him to a march to West Bengal state secretariat 'Nabanna' on April 21, but the police stopped them and took them to a police station "to discuss procedural issues" before issuing such invites.

The teachers who tried to go to Ganguly's residence belong to a platform, 'Chakrihara Oikyamanch', which had issued the call for a rally to Nabanna demanding immediate steps by the state government to restore the jobs of the 'untainted' candidates through legal submission before the apex court.

They were also part of the 25,753 teaching and non-teaching staff of state-sponsored and -aided schools who lost their jobs after the Supreme Court found large-scale irregularities in the 2016 recruitment process and scrapped the entire panel on April 3.

Those who were rendered jobless claimed that the reason behind their plight was the inability of the School Service Commission (SSC), which appointed them, to differentiate between the candidates who secured employment through fraudulent means and those who did not.

"We wanted to go to the residence of Sourav Ganguly, who is a popular figure and an icon, to intervene so that Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee holds talks with us. We wanted to meet Dada (Sourav) and invite him to our rally. We are carrying an invite for him," one of the three jobless teachers told reporters near the residence of Ganguly in Behala area in south Kolkata.

When the teachers were asked to hand over the invite to the staff in Ganguly's office, they refused and insisted on meeting him personally.

Police officials came to the spot and asked the three teachers to accompany them to Thakurpukur police station saying invitations cannot be handed over to Ganguly without a prior appointment.

Asked if they were being taken into custody, the officers ruled out any such move and said they only wished to discuss the demand of the teachers and the procedural matters.

While getting down from the police jeep, one of the teachers tripped and twisted his ankle. He was escorted to the police station by other personnel and given first aid.

"We just wanted to hear from them about the purpose of their visit and tell them the modalities to meet a VVIP like Ganguly. There are security issues," a police official said.

In another development, hundreds of jobless 'eligible' teachers formed a human chain at Y Channel in Esplanade area in central Kolkata for some time to highlight their issue.

"On the first day of the Bengali new year, we are without job which we cracked through hard work and merit in the recruitment test in 2016. We are on the road to draw the attention of the state government to our plight. We are among the untainted candidates and should not be victimised," Swagata Manna, a jobless teacher from Purba Bardhaman district, said.

The chief minister held a meeting with the jobless teachers on April 7 and asked them to keep faith in her.

The West Bengal Board of Secondary Education (WBBSE) has filed a petition in the Supreme Court requesting that the dismissed staff be allowed to continue until the end of the academic year or until a new recruitment process is completed—whichever is earlier.

Education Minister Bratya Basu, in the presence of WBBSE president Ramanuj Ganguly, had last week said the petition is expected to be heard by the apex court on April 17.