Protesting contractual employees of state-owned Punjab Roadways confronted Deputy Chief Minister of Punjab Sukhjinder Singh Randhawa and Transport Minister Amarinder Singh Raja Warring on Friday over the regularization of their jobs. The contractual employees have been staging protests demanding to make their contractual jobs regular and also increase the bus fleet size from the present number which is around 2500 to 10,000.
The contractual employees have alleged that Sukhjinder Randhawa misbehaved with them during the altercation. As per reports, the protesters had surrounded the ministers of Punjab and put their demands in front of them on Friday at Sri Muktsar Sahib. While Transport Minister Warring said, “Protesting is your right,” adding, “I along with Sukhjinder Singh Randhawa stepped out of our cars to talk to you.” Sukhjinder Singh Randhawa claimed, “It’s a drama.” Following which the angry protesters replied back and said, “The government is doing drama.”
But Amarinder Singh Raja Warring was not happy with this reply and reminded the protestors that they are talking to ministers. “You are talking to a Home Minister and a Deputy Chief Minister,” he said. After that Sukhwinder Singh Randhawa told the contractual employees, “Do whatever you want then.”
The Deputy CM also directed the DC to suspend the protesting employees who are supposed to be on duty at that time.
The protesting employees have also claimed that the Punjab government made a number of promises before the 2017 elections and they were not fulfilled yet. They had earlier protested during Amarinder Singh’s government and were told that their jobs would be made regular in twenty days. A protester named Gurpreet Singh had said, “We have also held a protest two months back that continued for nine days when Captain Amarinder Singh was the chief minister of Punjab and demanded to make our jobs regular,” adding, “The former chief minister back then promised us to make our jobs regular in twenty days but then it did not happen because he resigned from power and Charanjit Singh Channi took over the CM position. The current chief minister also promised the same. It has been two months now there is no update from this government too,”
The contractual employees in Ludhiana had earlier warned that they would hold indefinite strikes and block roads if the Punjab government did not consider their demands. Gurpreet Singh had said, “from November 23, we will start an indefinite strike, if the government will not listen to us even after that, we will start blocking roads.”
