Member of the Rajya Sabha Bikash Ranjan Bhattacharya today said the Trinamool Congress-led state government has planned to “break the system” in government and government-aided schools so as to promote private schools.

Addressing a rally at Tinbatti here today, Mr Bhattacharya, who is a lawyer by profession, also said such a conspiracy was being hatched for the past many days by recruiting teachers illegally and that it was the first step in breaking the education system in the state.

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“Announcing holidays for government-aided schools, the government has established that private schools are better for education and people are reluctant to take up state aided schools, and significantly they running after private schools. If such a situation continues, the government will withdraw those schools in lack of students. If there is no student, it would be legally difficult to prevent the government from taking such a decision,” Mr Bhattacharya, who is also the former Mayor of the Kolkata Municipal Corporation, said.

It may be noted here that the CPIM-backed ABTA and ABPTA organised an “Uttarkanya Avijan” and served an 11-point memorandum to Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, including issues related to DA and fresh and fair recruitment of teachers in vacant posts.

From Malda to Alipurduar, secondary and primary teachers from different districts joined in the rally today. As the rally comprising hundreds of teachers arrived at Tinbatti, the police stopped them from marching towards Uttarkanya and used water cannons to disperse the crowd.

ABTA and ABPTA leaders alleged that police beat them up, including women teachers, and even resorted to lathi charge.

Echoing the leaders, Mr Bhattacharya said: “Police here do not bother to beat up teachers because they have only one teacher, who is the Chief Minister, and who has become the CM illegally.” Mr Bhattacharya directly blamed the CM for the alleged illegal recruitment of teachers in schools.

Mr Bhattacharya came down heavily on both the Centre and the state governments and showcased several examples to establish the similarity between the BJP and the TMC.

Citing an example, Mr Bhattacharya said: “The state government has planned to build a Jagannath Temple by spending Rs 250 crore, but its Chief Minister does not bother to allot Rs 100 crore for Jadavpur University, a temple of education, so that it can claim funds of Rs 400 crore from the Centre for the development of the University and for its students and scholars.”

He also criticized both the governments on the issue of social justice and economic justice and said: “Where is freedom of thought and freedom of expression?”

Drumming up the role of the Left Front since 1978, Mr Bhattacharya said: “In 2011, many people took a suicidal decision to dislodge the Left Front. Now, time has come to bring back the tradition, and teachers like Vidyasagar will have to take the responsibility.”

On the other hand, state general secretary of the ABTA Sukumar Pain said: “The state government plans to bring in privatization in the education system in the name National Education Policy. It has planned to withdraw 8000 schools.”

“What is the reason behind the announcement of a long summer vacation? It is simply to siphon off funds for the midday meals during the vacation,” Mr Pain said, adding, “We would not boycott the vote, demanding DA. We would take part in the coming elections to ensure proper democratic rights of the people.”

State general secretary of the ABPTA Dhruba Shekhar Mandal said: “Rs 5.45 is not enough for midday meal. We have demanded at least Rs 12 for each primary and Rs 15 for each upper primary student. Very interestingly, the state introduced “Pusti Prokalpa” (nutrition scheme) for nutrition of a section of leaders involved in corruption.”