Truckers with Cong leaning boycott union building

Nikhila Pant Dhawan

Tribune News Service

Goniana, April 26

Expressing displeasure over preferential treatment being meted out to truckers and transporters who owe allegiance to the Shiromani Akali Dal, transporters favouring the Congress party today quit the building of the truck operators’ union at Goniana in Bhucho constituency.

As a mark of protest, the transporters put up their chairs outside the truck union building.

As per information, following the instructions of Congress MLA from Bhucho, Pritam Singh Kotbhai, an eight-member committee was constituted to look into the routes being marked to the trucks.

This committee had taken the truck operators’ union building into their possession but this didn’t go down well with other operators.

Following internal strife between Congress operators, the contract of lifting the wheat produce from the Goniana circle was taken from contractor Sohan Lal and given to an Akali leader.

Irked over losing the contract to SAD truck operator, Congress party workers and operators announced a boycott of the truck operators building and stated that they would work from outside the building.

The special committee members said the Congress truck operators were upset with the choice of candidate for heading the truck union.

They also alleged that the Congress head of the truck union, Kulwinder Singh, who was considered to be quite close to Kotbhai, had even clandestinely worked for taking the contract from Congress workers and giving it to SAD truck operators.

The union members alleged that after becoming the truck union president, Kulwinder demanded that the truck union accounts be transferred in his name and that demand was not acceptable to any of the truck operators.

“Since the Congress truck operators didn’t support his demand, he went on and shook hands with the Akali truck operators,” the union members said.