MLA Fatehjang Singh Bajwa declines government job offer for son

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, June 23

In what is being seen as a damage control move for the Congress, MLA Fatehjang Singh Bajwa has given in writing to the party high command that he does not require a government job for his son, Arjun Bajwa, who was recently offered the post of Inspector in Punjab Police at a Cabinet meeting.

The development follows Fatehjang’s brother and Rajya Sabha MP Partap Singh Bajwa’s appeal to him and MLA Rakesh Pandey to give up the government jobs offered to their sons on compassionate grounds.

Sources in the party said Fatehjang, who was in Delhi yesterday, met Punjab affairs in-charge Harish Rawat and Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh before submitting his written statement that his son did not require the government job. It is learnt that the party high command had taken a serious note of the Cabinet decision to offer government jobs to VIP kin.

After five ministers opposed the move during the Cabinet meeting, Jakhar had termed the appointments an ill-advised decision and cautioned the party against promoting nepotism.

A few MLAs and other senior leaders of the party had also opposed the decision.

Meanwhile, Congress MLA from Ludhiana Rakesh Pandey, while justifying the post of naib tehsildar offered to his son on compassionate grounds, said those opposing the move were sympathisers of terrorists and their ideology. Terrorists had killed the MLA’s father Joginder Pal Pandey, also a legislator, in 1987.