The Uttarakhand General, OBC employees association, the powerful federation of employees has threatened work boycott during the upcoming budget session of Uttarakhand Vidhan Sabha.
The association is demanding that Uttarakhand government should implement the order of Supreme Court (SC) on reservation in promotions and remove the ban imposed on the promotions.
The association which claims to have over 2.5 lakh employees has given a call for indefinite strike from March 2. Incidentally the budget session of Uttarakhand assembly is commencing from March 3 at Gairsain.
The president of the association, Deepak Joshi told The Pioneer that the thousands of employees have retired without promotion in last few months due to the ban imposed on the promotions. “After the landmark judgement of the SC, the employees are now in no mood to wait and suffer,’’ he said.
Reacting sharply to the recent statement of Congress leader and Rajya Sabha MP Pradip Tamta, Joshi said that the politicians should refrain from commenting on such a sensitive issue.
He said that the members of the association would burn effigy of the Congress leader at all district headquarters on Wednesday. The association has decided to hold a massive protest outside the residence of Tamta at Almora on the day. Joshi said that Mashal marches would be held in different parts of the state on Wednesday evening.
He claimed that the association is receiving support of similar associations in different parts of the country and on February 29, representatives of many states would arrive in Dehradun to hold discussion with the office bearers of the association of Uttarakhand. “We have sought time for meeting the CM Rawat on February 29. We don’t want to create problems for the government, we are part of it,’’ he said.
While hearing a Special Leave Petition (SLP), the SC on February 7 had opined that the states are not bound to provide reservation in promotions and said that the reservation is not a fundamental right. The SLP was filed by the Uttarakhand government against the Uttarakhand High Court (HC) order in Gyanchand Vs state case. This order has brought a sharp schism among the employees on caste lines. The general and OBC employees want that there should be no reservation in promotion while the SC and ST want that the benefit of reservation should be extended to them in promotions also.