BJP walks out en masse as daily-wagers’ issue rocks J&K assembly
Chief minister Omar Abdullah appeals to daily-wagers to end protest and resume work as committee, led by chief secretary, will be submitting its report in six months.
Accusing the Omar Abdullah-led government of turning a blind eye to the agitating daily-wagers, the BJP on Tuesday staged a walkout from the assembly in Jammu on Tuesday.
Soon after question hour, the BJP MLAs created ruckus and sought the government’s response to the issue.
Leader of opposition Sunil Sharma said despite the BJP consistently raising the concern in the House, the government did not respond to the issue of daily-wagers, who have been protesting for the regularisation of their services.
Sharma was joined by other BJP members, who accused government of being “insensitive” towards the daily-wagers.
Chaos erupted when NC members and AAP MLA Mehraj Malik started raising slogans to counter the BJP MLAs.
While chief minister Omar Abdullah watched the pandemonium silently, deputy chief minister Surinder Choudhary accused the BJP of playing “double politics” on the issue. He alleged that BJP has been fuelling the agitation. “The chief minister has formed a panel and the government wants to resolve the issue,” he said.
Speaker Abdul Rahim Rather tried to pacify opposition and treasury benches but his efforts went in vain.
In his reply, Abdullah blamed BJP MLA Sham Lal Sharma, who was the then public health and engineering (PHE) minister from the Congress in the previous government headed by him. “What did you do for the daily-wagers when you were the PHE minister in my (previous) government,” Abdullah asked, adding fuel to the protest. “We have already formed a committee on daily-wagers and have sought six months. I have full faith in the chief secretary and his team of officers that they will come up with a resolution of the issue,” he said.
He appealed to the protesting daily-wagers to resume duty and let the committee submit the report.
Reacting to the BJP slogan of ‘Daily-wagers ke saath insaaf karo’, Abdullah said, “At least you admit that injustice has been meted out to them.”
Amid the din, all 28 BJP MLAs walked out.
Earlier, Sharma said he had never seen “such an arrogant government”. He said the government panel could at least talk to the representatives of agitating daily-wagers.
In 2014, Sharma (then in the Congress and PHE minister) had resigned from the Omar Abdullah ministry citing alleged sabotage of the regularisation of services of daily-wagers as a reason. At that time, he claimed that National Conference ministers were blocking the move because there were more daily-wagers from Jammu region.
Later, speaking to the media outside the House, BJP MLA Sharma said that a committee was constituted in the NC-Congress coalition government on the daily-wagers issues of which the sitting speaker Abdul Rahim Rather was the chairman. “We will be holding a press conference on Wednesday with all documents and evidences to substantiate our claims,” he said.
However, hundreds of protesting daily-wagers were prevented from marching towards the civil secretariat for the fifth day on Wednesday.
Police resorted to mild lathicharge to disperse them, but they staged a sit-in at Shalimar Chowk near the secretariat.
According to an old estimate of the previous PDP-BJP coalition government that fell apart in June 2018, Jammu and Kashmir had 61,000 such workers engaged by various government departments. To regularise their services, the cash-strapped J&K government needed ₹1,925 crore a year.
