On Lohri, teachers set fire to Education Minister’s effigy

Tribune News Service

Bathinda, January 13

Members of the 5178 Master Cadre Union, along with the Sanjha Adhyapak Morcha, on Sunday staged a protest against the government by burning an effigy of Education Minister OP Soni in front of Finance Minister Manpreet Badal’s office here.

The protesters first gathered at Teachers’ Home and from where they took out a protest march till the Finance Minister’s office. There they staged a protest.

Kulwinder Singh, president of the union, said, “The Education Minister had asked the teachers’ union to call off their hunger strike in Patiala on December 2 by assuring them of regularising the services of teachers, recruited under the 5178 Master Cadre from January 1, 2019, onwards and cancelling the transfers ordered by the department. Though we have ended the strike, the government has not taken any concrete step to deliver on its promises so far. In other words, the government has backtracked on its own decision now.”

He said on February 2, they, along with members of the Sanjha Adhyapak Morcha, would carry out a protest march in Patiala. If the government did not relent and fulfil our demands, we would intensify our stir. We demanded that rather than giving verbal assurances, the state government must issue a notification regarding the regularisation of jobs of 5178 master cadre teachers.