The over-five-decade-long political career of senior TMC leader Partha Chatterjee seems to have received a huge jolt with the Enforcement Directorate arresting him on Saturday in connection with its investigation into the alleged school jobs scam in West Bengal.
Chatterjee, 69, who presently holds the industry and state parliamentary affairs portfolios of the Mamata Banerjee government, was the education minister from 2014 to 2021, during which the alleged irregularities in teacher recruitment occurred.
He stepped into politics as a leader of Congress students’ wing – Chatra Parishad – in the late sixties during his college years, inspired by then firebrand youth leaders Subrata Mukherjee and Priya Ranjan Dasmunsi.
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His political career halted after he took up a high-profile corporate job in the mid-seventies but he kept in touch with then Congress leaders.
Chatterjee decided to take a plunge into active politics after Banerjee broke away from the Congress and formed the TMC on January 1, 1998.
He went on to win from the Behala Paschim Assembly constituency for five consecutive terms since 2001 on a TMC ticket.
Chatterjee’s high point in his political career came in 2006 when he was appointed as the leader of the TMC party in the assembly and later leader of the opposition.
As Banerjee fought against the mighty Left Front regime on the streets of Bengal on the issue of forcible…
