A day after the State Government suspended four professors, including the director of the higher education department, on charge of admission-related malpractice, the members of Uttarakhand minister employees’ federation have stayed away from works on Friday by way of protest against the order. They said that their boycott stir would continue on Saturday. Unfazed by the agitation, the Minister of State Hgher education Dhan Singh Rawat said on Friday that the Government would weed out the admission-related malpractice from the educational institutions of the State at any cost. “We would end the practice of helping the students who flunked examination to contest students’ union elections, something that was started during the Congress regime,” he said. The leader of the opposition in the Vidhan Sabha Indira Hridayesh took a dig at the State Government on the issue, saying that the State Government is treating with the teachers as if they are slaves.
The protesters sat outside their department offices and sloganeered against the State Government, dubbing the suspension order as autocratic. In Haldwani, NSUI activists torched the effigy of Dhan Singh Rawat on Friday. The agitators said that the move was retaliatory as the present minister when he was in the opposition used to pull up the college principals and staffers over the issue of cancellation of nomination during the students’ union election. “Now the opposition leader seated in the saddle of power, he is baring his fangs on such principals who refused to fall in line,” said one of the agitators. Another said that they would go for an indefinite strike from February 5 if the State Government refuses to roll back the suspension order by then. The practical classes of the students were affected due to the work boycott stir by the staffers on Friday.
The four who were suspended by the Government order on Friday are the State higher education department director B C Malkani, MB Government PG College, Haldwani (Nainital) principal Dr Jagdish Prasad, Government College, Devidhura (Champawat) principal S S Uniyal and MB Government GP College, Haldwani assistant principal N K lohani.
Dhan Singh Rawat alleged that there were many instances of the students who flunked the degree examination being allowed to contest the students’ union election, throwing thus the norms to the winds. “Such violation of the norms happened during the Congress rule. Soon after coming to power, we got engaged in eliminating the practice and the latest order is meant to take things further.
Our Government would not allow any professors or any education officer to indulge in such irregularities. We would not back down under pressure,” he averred.
However, the veteran Congress leader Indira Hridayesh sounded anguished over the order. “It is the first time in my decade-long public life that I have seen principals being shunted out this way. I myself was a teacher for years. The order is humiliating for all the teachers. The teachers should write to the CM against the order while the students should also raise their voice,” she said.