Out on bail in the 2022 teacher recruitment scam case, former West Bengal education minister and suspended Trinamool Congress (TMC) leader Partha Chatterjee appears to be on the verge of a political comeback, just weeks ahead of the Assembly elections.
Speculations surrounding the sitting TMC MLA from Behala Paschim in Kolkata are rife after he was recently inducted in some key committees of the West Bengal Assembly, including the Housing and Fire Emergency Services Committee, Disaster Management Committee, and Library Committee, as per an Assembly bulletin.
“According to the Assembly rules, the Chief Minister, any minister, and the Leader of the Opposition cannot be made members of any Standing Committee or Committee of the House. After becoming an MLA for the first time in 2001, Partha Chatterjee was a part of several House panels. However, after becoming the Leader of the Opposition in 2006 and after the TMC came to power in 2011, he was not a member of any House committee due to his long tenure as a Cabinet minister. As he is not currently in any ministry, he has returned to the Assembly committees,” said a TMC leader.
Chatterjee, 73, is however keeping a low profile. Those close to him say he speaks only through family members’ phones, avoids public contact, and has warned supporters against crowding his home or office.
In Behala Paschim, though, confusion among his supporters seems to have turned to disappointment. His supporters who had reopened his MLA coordination office in the constituency in anticipation of his return found the crowds thinning after his aides reportedly advised them against “unnecessary visibility”.
A close associate of the erstwhile TMC heavyweight said, “We are expecting that dada (Chatterjee) will fight from Behala Paschim in the upcoming Assembly polls. He has done so much work for Behala that even after the school jobs scam episode, we still believe the people of Behala will not reject him if he stands in front of them with folded hands and requests for their votes.”
“However, whether Partha da will fight on a TMC ticket or as an Independent, that is yet to be cleared by him. He has not taken any decision so far (about returning to mainstream politics), but he is in contact with leaders from Behala who were very close to him. We are now just waiting for his final word,” Chatterjee’s associate said, adding that his bid to contest as an Independent will depend on the support of local TMC leaders.
On the question of revocation of Chatterjee’s suspension and the resumption of his active role in the TMC, a senior party leader said, “The final decision will be taken by Mamata Banerjee and Abhishek Banerjee. Other than them, no one can say anything officially about the inclusion of Partha Chatterjee in the TMC.”
From TMC heavyweight to margins of Bengal politics
Once a trusted lieutenant of Chief Minister and TMC supremo Mamata Banerjee, Chatterjee’s fall was rapid. After the alleged jobs-for-cash scam came to the fore in 2022, he was stripped of his TMC general secretary post, dropped from the state Cabinet and suspended from the party.
In July 2022, during the Enforcement Directorate (ED)’s probe into alleged irregularities in the appointment of government teachers in Bengal’s schools in 2016, when Chatterjee was the state education minister, the central agency recovered more than Rs 50 crore in cash from a flat belonging to Arpita Mukherjee, who was said to be an aide of Chatterjee. Shortly afterwards, Chatterjee was arrested by the ED.
Subsequently, the TMC government removed him from the state Cabinet and the party suspended him.
Last September, after more than three years of imprisonment, he was granted conditional bail by the Calcutta High Court, but could not walk out of jail due to a Supreme Court order that required charges to be framed and statements of witnesses to be recorded in his pending cases. In November, the final eight witnesses recorded their statements, after which a special Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) court ordered Chatterjee’s release.
Since his release on November 11, 2025, Chatterjee has been lying low. Recently, he said he would attend the Assembly’s Budget Session, the last session before the state elections slated for March-April. He also said, “Life is not over. A fish cannot stay away from water (referring to him staying away from politics). I came to politics with an ideology, I am not here to make money. I want to stay with the people, which is the ideology of Mamata Banerjee.”