West Bengal minister Udayan Guha on Saturday claimed his father Kamal Guha, a veteran Forward Bloc leader, used to help party workers and their families by giving Group D government jobs when he was a minister in the Left Front government.

Sparking a controversy, he said his father used to recommend their names through 'chits', which has been the practice for decades.

"My father also helped some needy people -- wives of some deceased party workers or whole-timers, by getting them Group D level jobs on the compassionate ground through his quota. It has been the practice for decades when there was no recruitment process for such posts," he told news channel ABP Ananda.

Udayan Guha, who switched over to the TMC in 2016 after winning his father's Dihata seat in 2011 on a Forward Bloc ticket, is the North Bengal Development minister in Mamata Banerjee's government. His father was the agriculture minister in the Left Front government.

The TMC, which is battling allegations of corruption with its multiple leaders being arrested in the school recruitment scam, has been alleging that irregularities in hiring have happened during the Left Front government as well, and those should also be probed by the central agencies.

On Friday, Education Minister Bratya Basu claimed that his department has come across certain anomalies regarding the appointment of a senior CPI(M) leader's wife in a college.

He said the government was collecting evidence in the cases where no written tests or proper interviews had been conducted before appointments were made in schools or colleges during the Left Front government of 34 years.

Guha said such recruitment does not happen now as tests and interviews are mandatory.

"Allegations of irregularities are being probed and the law will take its own course. TMC will dissociate itself from elements that indulge in such irregularities. But recommending jobs through chits (party notepads) was institutionalised during the previous government, and it changed after TMC came to power in 2011," he claimed.

Questioning why no action was taken in the last 12 years on the allegations of irregularities that happened during the Left Front government, leader of the opposition Suvendu Adhikari of the BJP said the TMC was trying to divert public attention by flagging these now.

"As the irregularities under the TMC government has surpassed all previous records, it is trying to deflect the public attention from its own misdeeds by flagging the malpractices that happened during the Left Front rule which it did not want to unravel," he alleged.

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