Ludhiana DC behaving like arrogant political leader: Teachers

Tribune News Service

Ludhiana, February 8

Deputy Commissioner Varinder Kumar Sharma’s statement on social media regarding forced retirement of employees seeking exemption from poll duty has been strongly condemned by teacher unions.

In a statement released in the media, the Deputy Commissioner had said he would send a recommendation to the government to retire about 1,000 employees seeking exemption from poll duty for various reasons.

Teachers said Varinder Kumar Sharma sarcastically spoke about the employees, who are unable to perform their election duty due to their ill health or of their family members. The DC said he will recommend to the government to retire such employees and believes that women who are concerned about their ailing mothers-in-law should also be retired, said the teachers. Leaders of teacher unions Daljit Samrala, Gurpreet Singh, Davinder Singh, Sukhdev Hathur, Amandeep Singh Nolari, Hoshiar Singh, Ravinder Happy, Gurbachan Singh, Harpinder Shahi and Sanjay Puri have strongly condemned the ‘controversial’ statement of the Deputy Commissioner.

Speaking to the media at a press conference here today, Daljit Samrala, district general secretary of the Democratic Teachers Front, said, “This behaviour of the Ludhiana DC is like that of an arrogant political leader and CEO of a trading company. Daljit said such civil servants have forgotten the language of civil servants and in the public sector they treat the public servants as their personal servants. They do not realise that it is essential for a democratic system to take into account the fundamental and human rights of the people and workers when taking any work from them.”

Jagraon block president of the Democratic Teachers Front Davinder Singh Sidhu said on the basis of his recent application, the Election Commission has issued instructions to the Ludhiana DC-cum-District Electoral Officer to allocate the duties to teachers and staff in their paternal or neighbouring constituencies. All those instructions have been ignored by the DC, the teachers alleged.

The leaders said if the DC does not withdraw his statement with an apology, then the united front of teacher unions will stage a big demonstration next week as a protest at the district administration office.

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