Thousands of irregular and ad-hoc staff are set to hold a mega protest over unfulfilling the Congress Government election promise at tuti in mana of Raipur on March 12. The scheduled mega protest is part of the ongoing demand of irregular and daily wage workers to regularise them as per the promises made by the congress party before the 2018 State Assembly election.
It’s been reported that the mega protest, which has the support of various organisations of irregular staff of the State Government, is scheduled to chalk out a strategy for protest in the upcoming months, speaking about the protest secretary of the ‘Chhattisgarh Aniyamit Karmachari Morcha’ Gopal Prasad Sahu said that the “last budget of the state government is disappointing for the irregular staff as we all had high hopes from the government that at last, they will deliver on their promises, however, the government by not doing anything for the irregular workers has crushed their hopes; therefore our protest against the State Government will continue.”
Meanwhile, speaking to the media on March 9, Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel said that “the data collecting process has already been initiated and so far 24 departments have provided the details while the respective details are still awaited from the remaining 22 departments, once the data is available we will definitely look after it, though no date can be given for now.”
However, terming the statement as an excuse-giving exercise, the head of the ‘Sarv Vibhag Samvida Karmchari Mahasangh’, Hemant Sinha said that “the issue of irregular workers has been raised in almost every assembly session; however, each time the ministers have comes with a similar rhetoric that the relevant details are still awaited by the government, if the details are still pending with the department then officials of the respective department should be held accountable for that.”
Long pending demand
It should be noted that in a bid to woo the irregular staff during the State Assembly election of 2018, the Congress party had promised to regularise all the ad-hoc, daily paid and other irregular staff of the State Government if voted to power; however, the long pending demand of these employees are still pending as the government in the last five years not even managed to collect the required details from the departments.
Significantly, various bodies of these irregular employees are continuously hitting the streets on the issue of regularisation. Yet, other than giving empty assurances to the employees, the State Government still needs to take concrete steps to fix the issue.
Now that the State Assembly election is approaching soon, the Congress party is facing the vexation of around five lakhs irregular staff who have opted to protest against the ignorance of the Congress Government; the ill intentions of the government can better be understood by the fact that the government in its entire tenure has not even assessed all the legal advices pertaining to the regularisation of the irregular employees, ultimately irking the employees to organise a mega protest against the lacklustre attitude of the Baghel Government.
It is to be noted that Health Minister TS Singh Deo and Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel have many times got engaged in a tug of war over the unfulfillment of the election promises as the former was instrumental in securing a landslide victory for the Congress on the behest of his popular promises made in the party manifesto, however once voted to power not only has the State Government failed to fulfill its promises, but the serious allegations of promoting illegal conversions and corruption have also embarrassed the government quite frequently.
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