New Delhi: West Bengal Commerce and Industries Department minister and TMC leader Partha Chatterjee was arrested by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Saturday morning. The West Bengal minister was arrested by ED after being questioned for over 27 hours in connection with an alleged recruitment scam in state-run schools. Earlier, on Friday, the agency had detained his close aide Arpita Mukherjee after Rs 21 crore have been recovered from her house during the raid.
ED is currently probing the recruitment irregularities in the West Bengal School Service Commission (WBSSC) and West Bengal Board of Primary Education (WBBPE).
Partha Chatterjee, who is currently holding the position of state’s Commerce and Industries Department minister, is also the West Bengal General Secretary of the All India Trinamool Congress and holds the portfolio of Ministry of Parliamentary Affairs.
Earlier, Chatterjee has served the state as the Education Minister in Mamata Banerjee's cabinet from 2014 till 2021.
Chatterjee was elected as an MLA from Behala Paschim on a Trinamool Congress ticket and has been holding the South Kolkata seat since 2001.
He was also the Leader of the Opposition in the West Bengal Legislative Assembly from 2006 to 2011, before Mamata Banerjee's party formed the government in 2011.
In 2016, Chatterjee became the Minister-in-Charge of Higher Education and School Education Department, West Bengal Government and the Ministry of Commerce and Industry, Public Enterprises, Information Technology and Electronics, during Mamata’s government’s second term.
Additionally, Chatterjee is the chairman of Naktala Udayan Durga Puja Committee in Kolkata, which is famous for its themed pandals and draws lakhs of pandal hoppers in Puja.
On the education front, Chatterjee completed his MBA from Calcutta University.
