West Bengal Governor C V Ananda Bose on Friday approved the prosecution of state Cabinet minister Chandranath Sinha in connection with the alleged school teachers’ recruitment scam that is being probed by the Enforcement Directorate (ED).
Sinha, popularly known as Chandu, has been a Cabinet minister in the Mamata Banerjee-led Trinamool Congress (TMC) government since 2011. At present, he holds the Correctional Administration portfolio. He was previously handling the departments of Panchayat and Rural Development, Fisheries, Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises and Textiles.
Sinha, the MLA of Bolpur, is from a small town in the Birbhum district. His father moved to Bolpur in the same district for work and Sinha grew up there.
As a student at the Bolpur College and then Visva Bharati University, Sinha was part of the Congress’s student wing Chhatra Parishad. When Mamata walked out of the Congress and formed the TMC in 1998, he joined her party.
In the TMC, Sinha has been closely associated with Anubrata Mondal who was once considered to have the last word in the party’s Birbhum unit. However, Anubrata’s stature within the TMC has been on the decline. He had been arrested by the CBI and the ED in 2022-23 in cases linked to alleged cattle smuggling. He was released on bail last year.
Earlier this year, after an audio clip of Anubrata allegedly using abusive language in a phone call with a police officer went viral, the TMC condemned his “derogatory and abusive” language and asked him to issue an unconditional apology within hours.
Sinha’s relationship with Anubrata, too, is said to have deteriorated over the last couple of years. The minister is now said to be close to TMC leader Kajal Sheikh, who is a known detractor of Anubrata in Birbhum.
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On Friday, the ED conducted a series of searches at Sinha’s residences in Bolpur. Sources said the minister, who was at his ancestral house in Murarai in the same district, left for his Bolpur residence on learning about the development.
“I did not do anything wrong. Unless I reach there (Bolpur) and talk to them, I will not be able to tell what is happening. I will cooperate with them in every possible way,” Sinha then said.
The alleged teacher recruitment scam came to light in 2022. The ED has alleged that eligible and meritorious candidates were denied appointments as school teachers, while unqualified and underserving candidates were recommended and appointed in exchange for money.
In January 2023, during a raid at the residence of suspended TMC youth leader Kuntal Ghosh, the ED seized documents that allegedly identified agents involved in facilitating the recruitment of ineligible candidates.
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One such document purportedly indicated Sinha’s alleged involvement in this “scam”. He has denied these allegations.
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