Baby Chakraborty, KalimNews, May 21, 2025, Kolkata : The political storm over the teacher recruitment scam in West Bengal intensified on Tuesday as Leader of Opposition Subhendu Adhikari launched a scathing attack on Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, blaming her personally for the prevailing crisis. Addressing reporters during a ‘Tiranga Yatra’ in the Ranaghat North-West Assembly constituency, Adhikari reignited the controversy surrounding the “qualified versus incompetent” debate, declaring that only one person in Bengal truly fits the label of “incompetent”—and that, according to him, is the Chief Minister herself.
Adhikari’s remarks come in the backdrop of the prolonged unrest over recruitment corruption, which led to the Supreme Court scrapping the 2016 recruitment panel, leaving around 26,000 teaching and non-teaching staff jobless. Amid the public outcry, allegations, and legal fallout, the issue of who is “qualified” and who is “incompetent” has taken center stage in Bengal’s education and political discourse.
Criticizing the West Bengal Board of Primary Education and the broader education department, Adhikari alleged that the system lacks transparent rules and reliable standards for assessing candidate qualifications. He claimed that removing just “one person” from the equation would resolve the entire crisis—pointedly referencing Mamata Banerjee as the root of the dysfunction.
“The debate about qualified versus incompetent is deliberately created to distract from the real issue,” said Adhikari. “There’s only one incompetent individual among the 11 crore people of Bengal. Remove her, and the rest will fall into place.”
His comments drew immediate attention for their directness, but he did not stop there. Adhikari also took jabs at Trinamool Congress (TMC) leader Abhishek Banerjee, mocking his recent foreign visits and questioning the party’s decision to promote him over others like former cricketer and TMC MP Yusuf Pathan. Referring to the TMC as a “private limited company,” Adhikari implied that the party operates like a family-run enterprise with little internal democracy or accountability.
The explosive remarks are likely to deepen the political rift in Bengal, where education has become a major battleground. With multiple protests still ongoing—particularly by jobless teachers and non-teaching staff outside Vikas Bhavan—the opposition continues to target the ruling establishment, accusing it of systemic corruption, nepotism, and authoritarianism.
While TMC leaders have yet to officially respond to Adhikari’s latest tirade, political observers note that such confrontational rhetoric signals an increasingly polarized environment in the lead-up to future electoral battles. As the issue of recruitment corruption continues to haunt the state, the political discourse shows no signs of cooling down.