Paresh Adhikary vows to work for Trinamul Congress

In the past few days, he had been summoned by CBI and interrogated in several phases for around 16-and-a-half hours on Calcutta High Court orders

Paresh Adhikary being welcomed by Trinamul workers in Mekhliganj. : Picture by Main Uddin Chisti

TT Correspondent   |   Cooch Behar   |    25.05.22  : The minister of state for education, Paresh Adhikary, whose name cropped up in the schoolteacher recruitment scam, on Tuesday said he would work for his party, the Trinamul Congress.

“I do not have anything to worry as the law will take its own course…. In the past few days, we found those who all love the party and are with me and those who are not with me. From tomorrow (Wednesday), I will visit everywhere to work for the party. Trinamul leaders of Calcutta are with me,” Adhikary said at a meeting in Mekhliganj, his constitiency in Cooch Behar.

This is the first time in the past few days that the Trinamul MLA and junior minister in Mamata Banerjee’s cabinet accused of getting his daughter Ankita a job as a high school teacher at a government-aided girls’ school of Mekhliganj four years back addressed his supporters.

In the past few days, Adhikary had been summoned by the CBI and was interrogated in several phases for around 16-and-a-half hours on Calcutta High Court orders.

On Tuesday, Adhikary flew from Calcutta to Bagdogra where he didn’t speak to newspersons at the airport. At Mekhliganj, he was welcomed by hundreds of party workers.

“I will continue to serve for the party in the coming days. I had been a bit busy over the past few days and my struggle will continue,” said the MLA.

His assertion, Trinamul insiders said, is significant as many leaders in Cooch Behar distanced themselves from him in the past few days.

An order issued by the district inspector of schools (secondary) has reached the authorities of the higher secondary school where Ankita, his daughter, has been serving since November 2018. “The instruction of the district inspector of schools says that her salary should be withheld from this month according to the order of Calcutta High Court. The managing committee of the school will meet in this regard,” said a senior teacher of the school.