Mamata calls HC verdict 'illegal', BJP demands her resignation

Faced by a damning High Court verdict indicting the Trinamool Congress Government for illegal appointments in Government-run schools and cancelling 26,000 such appointments, Mamata Banerjee put up a defiant face and called the High Court order “illegal”.

- SUPROTIM MUKHERJEE

She said that the High Court Bench was working at the behest of the Bharatiya Janata Party.

Minutes after the High Court bench read out the operative portions in its 282-page order, the BJP was first off the block in this war of words. The BJP mounted pressure on the Chief Minister, seeking her resignation.

“If she has any shame, she should resign,” said Abhijit Gangopadhyay, the BJP candidate from Tamluk, who during his days as a judge in the Calcutta High Court had played a key role in pushing for a probe by the Central agencies into the irregularities in school teacher appointments.

BJP ’s Gangopadhyay made no bones about his role in unearthing the scam, something the ruling Trinamool has often cited to accuse the former judge of being biased. “The deserving candidates were deprived and cheated by the liar Chief Minister and her party,” said Gangopadhyay soon after the verdict was announced on Monday, adding that he felt proud to have served the judiciary.