Kolkata, Apr 11 (PTI) Calcutta High Court judge-turned-BJP MP Abhijit Gangopadhyay was on Friday greeted with “go back” slogans when he visited the site, where a section of the teachers who lost their jobs following a Supreme Court judgment, were on hunger strike since the previous day.

The agitators said they do not want political figures in their agitation, while Gangopadhyay, before leaving the spot, claimed that ultra Left-backed protesters were behind the slogans raised against him.

“I came here only to extend moral support. I have closely followed the episode in which over 25,000 teaching and non-teaching staff lost their jobs due to corruption in the 2016 recruitment process. I wanted to help,” Gangopadhyay told reporters near the West Bengal School Service Commission (SSC) office.

The former judge, along with former Rajya Sabha MP Rupa Ganguly, had visited the protest site at ‘Acharya Sadan’ on Thursday too to express solidarity with the teachers and other staff who lost their jobs, but did not face protests.

On Friday evening, however, when Gangopadhyay tried to address the protesters, he faced resistance and slogans demanding his departure. He was eventually escorted out of the protest site by police.

He said, “I think ultra Left-backed protesters are behind this (sloganeering against him).” The agitating teachers started an indefinite hunger strike outside the SSC office building ‘Acharya Sadan’ in Salt Lake near here on Thursday morning to protest the loss of jobs and police lathi-charge against their compatriots in south Kolkata’s Kasba area on April 10.

The agitators asserted they do not want politicians to be part of their protest.

“We are victims of politics and lost our jobs because of this. We will not allow political figures. This is our fight, and we will continue it on our own,” one of the agitating teachers told reporters.

The Supreme Court on April 3 upheld a 2024 Calcutta High Court judgment annulling the recruitment of 25,753 teaching and non-teaching staff appointed through a recruitment drive by SSC in 2016, terming the entire selection process “vitiated and tainted”.

Those who were rendered jobless claimed that the reason behind their plight was the inability of the SSC to differentiate between the candidates who secured employment through fraudulent means and those who did not.

Gangopadhyay, as a judge of the Calcutta High Court, had ordered a CBI investigation in November 2021 into alleged irregularities in the recruitment process.

He had also ordered the termination of more than 25,000 jobs of teaching and non-teaching staff in West Bengal government-run and -aided schools after finding irregularities in the process. This judgment was upheld by a division bench of the high court and thereafter by the Supreme Court.

The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and the Enforcement Directorate (ED) arrested former West Bengal education minister Partha Chatterjee and some others, who held positions in the state’s SSC when the irregularities in the recruitment process took place.

Gangopadhyay resigned as a judge in March 2024 and was elected to the Lok Sabha on a BJP ticket later. PTI BSM NN