Kolkata: West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee Monday said that the government is keen to provide employment to the aspirants of School Service Commission (SSC) jobs but court cases have stopped it from doing so. Reaching out to the protesting SSC job aspirants while addressing a programme on Teachers' Day, she said a section of the people are threatening to stop recruitment by the government by filing public interest litigations.
Banerjee, whose government in being castigated by the opposition for the arrest of former minister Partha Chatterjee in the SSC recruitment scam by the Enforcement Directorate, said that at times those who are at the top echelons of power have to face public wrath against corruption by those at the lower levels.
The TMC supremo, who is a strident critic of the Narendra Modi government, wondered why no arrests were made in the Vyapam scam that had rocked the BJP-ruled Madhya Pradesh. On the other hand the TMC government in Bengal has been serving the masses under "extreme financial stress" for the last ten years but is being "ridiculed every day".
Banerjee said that so far 2.63 lakh teaching and non-teaching recruitments have been done by SSC during the 11 years of the TMC regime and over 10,000 university teachers have been recruited. The recruitment process for 89,000 more teachers will be carried out soon. "All those who have not got justice will get it. But some people want to politicise the matter and are filing PILs to stop the process. If you file cases, the process will take time. I want to generate jobs, but some people are obstructing and filing PILs," she said.
"Not all people are the same, just like fingers on the hands of a person. Our moral characters differ from person to person and the society has both good and bad people. Just like one person cannot define a society, one bad deed cannot define a person. We must not put everyone in the same bracket," she said.
Criticising the opposition, Banerjee, who did not name any party, said "There are some people who follow the practice of neither working for the people nor letting others work. What did they (BJP) do during Madhya Pradesh's Vyapam scam? Fiftyfour people have died so far. Even yesterday, another scam was uncovered in the state. The corrupt have not been arrested," she said.
The Madhya Pradesh accountant general has found large-scale fraud and irregularities in the ambitious free food scheme for girls and women. The chief minister blamed the erstwhile Left Front regime for indulging in corruption in the recruitment of teachers. Banerjee said it would be unfair to compare the financial situation of West Bengal with the states of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana as they do not have the debt of previous governments.
"The Centre does not give us funds and it would be unfair to compare the financial situation of Bengal with other states, which do not have to repay loans of previous governments," she said.
Referring to Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's ongoing visit to India, Banerjee also wished teachers of the neighbouring country on Teachers Day. Hasina, who arrived in New Delhi on Monday on a four-day trip, will hold wide-ranging talks with Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday, after which the two sides are likely to unveil a slew of measures to boost cooperation in defence, trade and river water sharing. (PTI)
