Kolkata: A hunger strike by a section of the job losers, including teaching and non-teaching staff, in state-run schools in West Bengal is underway in front of the West Bengal School Service Commission’s office at Salt Lake in Kolkata.

The protesters are demanding that the state government and the commission segregate the “genuine” candidates from the “tainted” ones who secured jobs against money.

Notably, the Supreme Court last week upheld a previous order by a division bench of Calcutta High Court, cancelling the entire panel of 25,753 teaching and non-teaching jobs on the grounds that the state government and the commission failed to segregate the “genuine” candidates from the “tainted” ones.The strikers have also given a call to civil society to express solidarity to their hunger strike just as it did when several junior doctors last year went on a similar-hunger strike against the rape and murder of a junior woman doctor of state-run-R. G. Kar Medical College and Hospital in Kolkata last year.

Before beginning the strike on Wednesday afternoon, a protester, Suman Biswas, said: “As long as the segregation is not done and the mirror images of the OMR sheets of all the candidates are made public, we will continue with our hunger strike. If the state government is serious about its commitment to protect the interest of the ‘genuine’ candidates, they should complete the segregation process at the earliest.”

A number of BJP leaders, including party Lok Sabha member and former Calcutta High Court Judge Abhijit Gangopahyay and actors-turned-politicians, namely Rupa Ganguly and Rudranil Ghosh, reached the hunger-strike dais to express solidarity. The “genuine” job losers are also scheduled to bring a protest march on Thursday in Kolkata on this issue.

“I request the common people and the members of the civil society to join the protest rally in large numbers,” said one of the protesters.

Meanwhile, BJP National General Secretary Tarun Chugh on Thursday criticised Mamata Banerjee for her statement that she would not allow the amended Waqf (Amendment) Act to be implemented in the state. Chugh asserted that the Waqf Act is already in force across the country and accused Banerjee of misleading the public. He further emphasised that India operates under a federal structure. Speaking with IANS, Tarun Chugh said, “The Waqf Act has been implemented in the country. Mamata Banerjee is misleading people. The country functions on a federal structure, and the Parliament is the highest empowered body.

The Act has been passed and implemented across the nation.” The BJP leader further compared Mamata Banerjee to Pakistan’s founder Muhammad Ali Jinnah.