Ghosh emerged from the hour-long meeting singing, “Aha ki anondo akashe batashe… (Oh, what happiness in the sky and the air).” He added, “As I said earlier, I was in TMC, I am in TMC and will continue as a TMC worker.”
Ghosh has been openly critical of the TMC this week, saying that the party was aware of the corruption in the school education department. He also attacked Lok Sabha candidate and TMC’s parliamentary party leader Sudip Banerjee.
“If you have just started treatment of a wound, it is not possible to say just after that, after how many days the wound will heal. Wait and watch what will happen,” Basu said after the meeting.
On Friday, days before West Bengal votes in the third phase of the Lok Sabha elections on May 7, former state education minister Partha Chatterjee said that Ghosh “should have been expelled earlier”. Ghosh hit back, calling Chatterjee “an extortionist and corrupt leader”.
“He [Ghosh] is more harmful than any Opposition leader. I had said that earlier…he should have been expelled from the party immediately,” Chatterjee, an accused in the West Bengal School Service Commission (WBSSC) recruitment scam, said on Friday while being produced before a Kolkata court.
Ghosh hit out at Chatterjee, saying, “Partha Chatterjee’s statement indicates I am on the right path. If Partha Chatterjee praised me, I would be concerned that there is something wrong. He is a heinous extortionist and corrupt leader. Rs 50 crore was recovered from his girlfriend’s flat and he is giving me a character certificate. I am proud that a man like Partha Chatterjee is criticising me.”
Earlier this week, the TMC removed Ghosh as its state general secretary after he shared the stage with former TMC MLA-turned-BJP Lok Sabha candidate Tapas Roy and praised him. He was also removed from the party spokesperson post and the TMC’s list of campaigners for the Lok Sabha elections.
Ghosh had alleged that apart from Chatterjee, another state minister was involved in the alleged school jobs scam. “The party was well aware of the fact that large-scale corruption and extortion in lieu of jobs was taking place in the school education department. The party was aware of it even before the 2021 Assembly polls,” he had said on Wednesday.
Meanwhile, Ghosh found support from veteran party leader and former Rajya Sabha MP Santanu Sen and Basu who said that his “contribution to the party cannot be forgotten”.