West Bengal’s political battlefield heated up Monday as Leader of Opposition Suvendu Adhikari lampooned Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s dramatic pledge to hire IPAC’s Kolkata employees into government roles. The BJP stalwart’s mockery followed IPAC’s abrupt 20-day operational pause in the state, with staff sent on compulsory ‘short leave’—a move that exposed fault lines in TMC’s election strategy.
It all started Sunday when an internal IPAC email leaked, prompting TMC’s knee-jerk denial. But Banerjee seized the moment at a Tarakeshwar rally, promising jobs to the ‘threatened’ workers. ‘Agencies serving us are being forced out by ED raids during polls. If you intimidate them, they’ll come to us—we’ll employ them. I’ve spoken to Abhishek; no one will go jobless,’ she asserted, painting central agencies as villains in a grand plot.
Adhikari pounced, using X to contrast this with the ongoing fallout from the school recruitment scam. Crores in alleged corruption have sidelined meritorious teachers, he noted, making Banerjee’s IPAC overture ‘hilariously absurd.’ ‘Stripping jobs from the qualified via endless deceit to cling to power, and now rewarding your propaganda architects? Your track record screams it: rob the able, peddle posts to cronies, and weave webs of lies,’ his statement read.
The IPAC saga revives memories of its pivotal role in TMC’s 2021 triumph, now under scrutiny. Banerjee’s job bait appears as a counter to BJP’s narrative of cronyism and scams, but Adhikari’s riposte amplifies youth anger over unfulfilled promises. As Bengal heads to polls, this jobs-versus-scams duel could define voter sentiment, with unemployment remaining a persistent grievance in the state.
