Promises not kept, CM betrayed govt staff, says Punjab LoP Partap Singh Bajwa

Chandigarh, December 7

After inconclusive talks between the protesting ministerial staff and the government, the Leader of the Opposition (LoP) in Punjab Vidhan Sabha, Partap Singh Bajwa, on Thursday accused CM Bhagwant Mann of harassing the employees as well as the public.

“It is the AAP government, which first promised to implement the old pension scheme (OPS) and now it is reneging from its promise. Meanwhile, it’s been around a month since they have been on strike and their demands are including implementation of OPS, release of pending three instalments of dearness allowance and full pay scale to employees even during probation.”

Bajwa said over 50,000 employees of 52 government departments, who are members of Punjab State Ministerial Staff Union, have been on strike for the past one month. However, the AAP government had turned a blind eye towards their genuine demands. “The CM must not forget that it was the same staff that raised slogans in favour of him when he entered the Punjab Secretariat as a CM after forming the government. Punjab CM has backstabbed the Punjab Government employees by making false promises with them,” Bajwa added.

He said last year, from October 10 to October 22, the employees had gone on strike over the OPS issue. The strike was called off after the CM announced that the government would implement OPS.