PARTHA'S FALSE NOTES

The controversy over teachers' recruitment in West Bengal has a material basis now: gold and cash. With TMC heavyweight Partha Chatterjee in custody, the party has to survive the scandal

- Romita Datta

If the Trinamool Congress thought it had effectively shut the lid on the teachers' recruitment scam that jolted the state a few months back, it was wrong. . Less than 24 hours after West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee told the massive turnout at the July 21 'martyrs' day' rally at the Esplanade in Kolkata that she wanted to see her "party become the only idealist party in the country", her trusted lieutenant, high-profile TMC leader and minister Partha Chatterjee was arrested by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) in connection with the teachers' recruitment scam on July 23. It was accompanied by lurid details: the ED, probing the money trail aspect of the scam being investigated by the CBI, found a huge cache of unaccounted cash-totalling Rs 21.2 crore-from the apartment of Chatterjee's 'close aide', 27-year-old model-actress Arpita Mukherjee. The bundles of 2,000 and 500 rupee notes are suspected to be the proceeds of sale of teaching posts for government schools.

Chatterjee, who was education minister when the scam allegedly took place, was grilled for 26 hours; overnight raids revealed a massive number of property deeds, gold jewellery and foreign currencies in Arpita's name.