Rise and fall of Partha Chatterjee, Mamata Banerjee’s loyalist & TMC’s ‘go-to man’

From a middle-class boy growing up in South Kolkata’s Naktala neighbourhood to Trinamool Congress secretary general and a minister in the Mamata Banerjee cabinet, Partha Chatterjee’s five-decade career had a chequered upward trajectory. But it appears to have taken a downward spiral, as the 69-year-old was arrested Saturday by ED in a “bribe-for-job” scandal from his stint as education minister.

A Mamata loyalist, the MLA for Behala Paschim assembly constituency since 2001 has served as minister of commerce and industries, education, and parliamentary affairs over the last two decades. He played a crucial role in Trinamool, particularly after Mukul Roy left the party in 2017. Partha-da has been the go-to man for party members.




But on the day of his arrest, the party and its ranks distanced themselves from the trouble-shooter.

The genesis of his fall can be traced to 2016 when he was made education minister. Chatterjee got enmeshed in a controversy in 2019 after word spread that many job-seekers had paid bribes when the state government hired teachers and non-teaching staff in state-run schools. A five-member advisory panel was set up to oversee school appointments.



Chatterjee and Trinamool members ignored agitations till the Calcutta high court took note of the charges in 2021. That year, Bratya Basu replaced him as education minister. But Partha-da didn’t fall from grace yet.

Chatterjee had a clean image unlike many colleagues who were arrested or indicted in the Saradha scam and the Narada tapes leak. He was adjudicator of disputes within TMC and was assigned the task of talking to dissenters ahead of a spate of defections in 2020.

Fissures surfaced as the teacher recruitment heat increased. When CBI questioned Chatterjee this June, TMC state secretary Kunal Ghosh said the scandal is from his tenure as education minister, not from Basu’s. Chatterjee said running the government was a “collective responsibility”.