Female SSC job aspirants, who had qualified for teaching jobs in 2016 but were yet to get employment, took out a rally in Kolkata on Wednesday, highlighting their plight on International Women's Day.

Around 200 candidates, wearing black dresses, brought out a rally from Sealdah railway station to the Mahatma Gandhi statue in central Kolkata.

Some of the protesters protested on the ground, got up and repeated the action throughout the rally, while others showed placards calling upon the woman chief minister (Mamata Banerjee) to "wake up to the plight of the teaching job aspirants".

"Various programmes are held across the city on the occasion of International Women's Day but eligible School Service Commission (SSC) female candidates are staging a sit-in protest for over 720 days, yet the state government has turned a deaf ear to their plight," Madhurima Sinha, an SSC candidate, said.

The protesters also beat drums to "wake the government up from slumber".

Trinamul Congress spokesperson Kunal Ghosh said the state education department was working in the "best interest" of the SSC hopefuls as directed by the court.

"We request them to have patience. Not a single eligible candidate will be left out," Ghosh added.

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