Jobless teachers meet Bengal BJP, Cong leaders, solicit support for protest

Kolkata: A delegation of protesting school teachers, who have lost their jobs following a recent Supreme Court order, met BJP and Congress leaders in West Bengal, and sought support for their "apolitical" sit-in outside the state education department headquarters.

The team of around 20 teachers called on BJP leaders on Wednesday and requested them to arrange meetings with President Droupadi Murmu and Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

These teachers have been staging a sit-in outside Bikash Bhavan, the West Bengal Education Department headquarters, for the last several days, demanding that they be reinstated in their jobs.

A delegation of around 20 members of the Deserving Teachers Rights Forum called on former union minister and senior BJP leader Debasree Choudhury at the party office here, seeking help for arranging meetings with the President and the PM, a protester said.

They also sought support from the Centre in their legal battle for reinstatement in their jobs, he said.

"We are reaching out to leaders of various parties to join our apolitical battle against the injustice meted out to us. We are victims of the massive corruption in the recruitment process, which could not be curbed by the School Service Commission," Suman Biswas, one of the forum members, said.

The delegation also went to the state Congress headquarters, Bidhan Bhavan, and spoke to senior party leaders, including its president Subhankar Sarkar, seeking their support.

A West Bengal Pradesh Congress Committee leader pointed out that Lok Sabha MP Rahul Gandhi was the first among national leaders who had written to the President, drawing her attention to the plight of 25,753 teaching and non-teaching employees whose jobs were annulled following the recent apex court order.

The appointments of 25,753 teaching and non-teaching staffers of state-aided schools were invalidated by the Supreme Court, which termed the recruitment process "vitiated and tainted".

The protesting teachers have been demanding that the state government take measures so that they can get their jobs back permanently. They also refused to take part in a fresh recruitment exam as mandated by the top court.

Senior BJP leader Suvendu Adhikari and CPI(M)'s Satarup Ghosh were among the leaders who had turned up at the protest site of the teachers outside Bikash Bhavan and pledged solidarity and every kind of assistance to their movement.

A forum leader Mehboob Mondal said, "We would appreciate it if citizens, civil society organisation members and prominent people, shunning their political ideology, join us." The area around Bikash Bhavan turned into a virtual battlefield on May 15 evening during the violent clashes between the protesting school teachers and the police.

Many teachers, including several women, were injured in police action, which persisted for over an hour, eyewitnesses said.

Despite repeated pleas to the teachers to allow stranded employees of the education department to return home, the protesters continued their agitation, Deputy Commissioner of Police (Bidhannagar) Anish Sarkar had said.