Kolkata, Oct 6 It was a day of solitude on his 70th birthday on Thursday within his cell at the Presidency Central Correctional Home for former Education Minister and Trinamool Congress Secretary General, Partha Chatterjee, the principal accused in the multi-crore West Bengal School Service Commission (WBSSC) recruitment scam.
State Prison Department sources said that throughout the day the former minister mostly confined himself within the cell, and avoided interaction with anybody by spending most of the time lying down and closing his eyes. There was no special menu on the occasion and whatever was served to him in breakfast and lunch, he consumed it silently, an official said.
It is learnt that the former minister also confined himself within his cell during the last four days of Durga Puja from October 2 to October 5, as he was denied permission by the correctional home authorities to participate at the Puja within the jail premises on security grounds.
On October 1 afternoon before the full-fledged Puja rituals began, Chatterjee was taken to the pandal within the jail premises under security cover for just around 10 minutes.
However, till last year, he used to celebrate his birthday at his party office at Behala by cutting cakes and interacting with his followers and fellow party leaders. Last year, on this occasion, he was also seen accompanied by his close associate Arpita Mukherjee who is also in judicial custody now on the same charges.
Recently, during the course of hearing in the matter a number of times the former minister broke down into tears as he pleaded for release on bail under any circumstances. But every time his bail application was rejected. Now with both Enforcement Directorate (ED) and Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) having filed their first charge sheets in the WBSSC scam, it is now highly uncertain when the second-in-command both in the state government as well as in Trinamool will be able to step out under the open sky.
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