Bengal school jobs scam: Partha Chatterjee removed from ministry with immediate effect

Partha Chatterjee was on Thursday removed from the West Bengal Cabinet with immediate effect a week after his arrest in the SSC scam case.

In an official notice, the Government of Bengal said, Chatterjee, Minister in Charge, Department of Industry, Commerce and Enterprises, Department of Information Technology and Electronics, Department of Parliamentary Affairs and Department of Public Enterprises and Industrial Reconstruction is hereby relieved of his duties as Minister in Charge of the aforesaid Departments with effect from today.

Amid demands for expulsion of Partha Chatterjee by Trinamool Congress leaders, the party had convened a meeting today.

The meeting was convened hours after TMC state general secretary Kunal Ghosh demanded Chatterjee, arrested in the SSC scam case, be sacked from the cabinet and expelled from the party after nearly Rs 50 crore in cash was recovered from properties linked to him.

The demand for Chatterjee's removal also came amid the opposition BJP and CPI(M)'s attack on the TMC for not taking any action against him even as huge amounts of cash were recovered from properties linked to him.

The chief minister recently said that if someone is found guilty, she would not spare that person, even if he is a minister.

Nearly Rs 50 crore in cash, and gold, believed to be in kilograms, were recovered from apartments linked to Chatterjee's close associate Arpita Mukherjee, besides documents of properties and foreign exchange, as per officials of the Enforcement Directorate, which arrested them.

Chatterjee was the education minister when the alleged irregularities took place.

TMC's mouthpiece "Jago Bangla" has stopped naming him either as a minister or the party's secretary-general. However, his name remains in the printer's line as its editor.