Who is Partha Chatterjee: Partha Chatterjee is an Indian politician who previously served as the Education Minister and Minister of Commerce and Industries of West Bengal. The speaker represented the Trinamool Congress. In politics, he also held the position of Secretary General of the All India Trinamool Congress. Partha Chatterjee was in charge of the Ministries of Parliamentary Affairs, Public Enterprises, Information Technology and Electronics, Industries, Commerce, and Enterprises, and Industrial Reconstruction.
In the 1960s, he entered politics as a leader of the Congress Chatra Parishad during his college years. After being inspired by Subrata Mukherjee and Priya Ranjan Dasmunsi, he ascended to the position of general secretary of the Ashutosh College student union. He was one of the few Bengali politicians who pursued his education while entering politics. He completed his MBA at the Indian Institute of Social Welfare and Business Management after obtaining his master’s degree from Calcutta University.
In 1998, when Mamata Banerjee founded the Trinamool Congress, he returned to politics. In 2001, he ran for the first time for the Assembly and won the Behala Paschim seat. He is from South Kolkata. Since then, the five-term MLA has never been voted out of office.
Senior Trinamool Congress (TMC) politician and West Bengal minister Partha Chatterjee is currently being detained by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) on suspicion of involvement in the state’s school jobs fraud. Chatterjee is close to Arpita Mukherjee. In one of Arpita Mukherjee’s residences, the Enforcement Directorate allegedly discovered bundles of cash totaling more than Rs. 21 crores, which helped make her famous.
Association between Partha Chatterjee and Arpita Mukherjee.
Partha Chatterjee and Arpita Mukherjee have been observed frequently attending numerous public and social events, including the Durga Puja. She even appeared on the music record cover for the puja in 2021, and she participated in Partha Chatterjee’s Bengal assembly election campaign that year.
Partha Mukherjee’s Bengal SSC Scam
The alleged Partha Chatterjee scandal first came to light in 2014, when the West Bengal School Service Commission (SSC) announced that state-run schools in West Bengal would hire teachers using the State Level Selection Test (SLST) or WBSSC exam. In 2016, the Bengal SSC Scam occurred during Partha Chatterjee’s tenure as Minister-in-Charge of the West Bengal Department of Higher Education and School Education.
According to the petitioners in the WBSSC Scam, a number of applicants with lower test scores were elevated on the merit list. In the Teacher Recruitment Scam, there have also been allegations that applicants who were not even on the merit list received appointment letters. Nonetheless, the Calcutta High Court received a number of complaints alleging irregularities in the School Jobs Fraud recruitment process.
Partha Chatterjee was the minister of education from 2014 to 21 when the alleged School Jobs fraud occurred. Accusations indicate that Chatterjee participated in a fraud involving illegal recruiting practises, placing applicants with lower test scores higher on the merit list, and accepting cash in exchange for placing applicants in positions.
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50 Cr Cash in Bengal SSC Scam
Partha Chatterjee and Arpita Mukherjee were arrested on July 23, 2022 for their involvement in a WBSSC fraud involving the West Bengal Primary Education Board and the West Bengal School Service Commission (WBSSC). The Enforcement Directorate conducted an operation at the residences of Chatterjee, Paresh Adhikari, and other individuals. During the ED search of Arpita Mukherjee’s home, a large amount of currency estimated to be worth Rs 21 Crore was discovered.
The aforementioned amount was believed to be a result of the Bengal SSC Scam. During the ED raid on Arpita Mukherjee’s home, more than twenty mobile phones were discovered for this purpose, according to the investigating agency.
A number of additional incriminating documents, records, information about shady businesses, technical equipment, foreign currency, and gold have been discovered at the various locations where the con artists stayed. During the ED inspection of Partha Chatterjee’s home and Mukherjee’s flat, a number of WBSSC examination papers, student enrollment cards and other property-related documents were reportedly discovered by the investigating agency.
As directed by the Calcutta High Court, Arpita Mukherjee and Partha Chatterjee were escorted to the hospital on Friday for a medical examination. While refusing to depart the car, they both put on a dramatic performance. The authorities required them to go to the hospital for a medical evaluation. As a consequence of this occurrence, the BJP and TMC engaged in verbal combat.
As the investigators close in on the former minister’s aide, Arpita’s four expensive vehicles—a Mercedes-Benz, an Audi A4, a Honda City, and a Honda CRV—have vanished. The ED operation has already resulted in the seizure of nearly Rs 50 crore in cash and over Rs 5 crore worth of gold bars.+
