Chaos erupts near stadium ahead of Mamata Banerjee's meeting with school job losers

Kolkata, April 7 (IANS) Chaos and tension erupted in front of Netaji Indoor Stadium in central Kolkata, the venue of the scheduled meeting later in the day between West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and a group of job losers in state-run schools following the Supreme Court's order that annulled 25,753 teaching and non-teaching jobs last week.

The tension led to quarrels and minor scuffles between one group of job losers, who had entry passes for the meeting, and the other group who had not received such passes.

Those having the entry passes have been tagged as “genuine” candidates who lost their jobs reportedly following the cancellation of the entire panel of 25,753 candidates by the apex court because of the failure on the part of the state government and West Bengal School Service Commission (WBSSC) to segregate the “genuine” ones from “tainted” ones.

In fact, those having the entry passes have already been tagged as “genuine” ones, since the passes carry the tagline -- “We are genuine”. This group, which has been tagged as “genuine ones" is opposing the entry of those job losers who do not have the entry passes and are hence tagged as “tainted” ones.

On the other hand, another group of job losers, who had not been provided with entry passes, also assembled in front of Netaji Indoor Stadium have claimed that since the entire panel of 25,753 jobs was cancelled because of the segregation failure, how can it be decided now that who is “genuine” and who is not?

As both groups of job losers came face to face in front of the meeting venue, tension broke out, and quarrels and minor scuffles ensued between the two groups. The huge police contingent present outside the meeting venue had a tough time separating them.

However, finally, the police separated them and raised a barricade between the two groups. Additional police forces under the supervision of senior Indian Police Service (IPS) officials are being deployed in front of Netaji Indoor Stadium to keep the situation under control.

In the midst of this tension, confusion is still continuing over who is the organizer of the meeting and who issued the entry passes. Those in possession of the entry passes have claimed that these were issued from the state secretariat of Nabanna, and hence, the state government can be deemed as the organizer of the event.

However, officially, the state government has maintained that the convener of the meeting is an association of jobless people deprived because of the apex court order, and the Chief Minister is going there to listen to them on humanitarian grounds.

--IANS

src/dpb