Rahul Gandhi writes to President Murmu, urges for safeguarding interests of deserving Bengal teachers

New Delhi: Congress MP Rahul Gandhi wrote a letter to President Droupadi Murmu on Tuesday and sought her intervention in West Bengal teachers’ crisis, emanating from a Supreme Court verdict, which dealt a big blow to the recruitment of more than 26,000 teachers in the state.

In his two-page letter to President Murmu, Rahul said that treating the teachers selected through fair means on par with tainted ones will be a serious injustice to them and therefore it was important to draw a distinction between the two – one selected via fair means and the tainted, selected through unfair means.

Drawing President’s attention to the crisis arising from 26,000 job losses, he urged the President to take stock of it and take some steps for ‘redressal’.

“I request you to kindly consider their request favourably and urge the government to intervene in the matter to ensure that candidates selected through fair means are allowed to continue,” Cong MP wrote in the letter.

He further wrote, “Most untainted teachers have served for nearly a decade. Terminating them will force lakhs of students into classrooms without adequate teachers. Ther arbitrary termination will destroy their morale and deprive their families of what is often the sole source of income.”

Notably, the Supreme Court, on April 3, upheld an earlier verdict of the Calcutta High Court, leading to invalidation of 25,752 appointments of teaching and non-teaching staff. These appointments were made by a recruitment panel set up by the West Bengal School Service Commission (WBSSC) in 2016.

The court observed that the entire selection process of TMC government was “vitiated and tainted beyond resolution”.

The SC verdict came as a blow to the ruling party and West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee particularly in light of the fact that it comes ahead of party’s poll preparations for the 2026 Assembly elections.

IANS