Demanding 10 per cent horizontal reservation in the Government jobs and other benefits for the identified statehood activists as earlier promised by the State Government, scores of Statehood activists staged a demonstration at Parade Ground and rallied for Rajbhawan on Thursday. However, they were stopped at the barricade set up at Kanak Chowk.
The protesters led by its leader Jagmohan Singh Negi assembled at Parade Ground. They later took out a rally destined for Rajbhawan. They were heard shouting anti-Government slogans.
To maintain peace, the district administration made elaborate security arrangements by deploying police forces during the time the rally was on. Police had put up a barricade at Kanak Chowk to stop the protesters, on their way to Rajbhawan.
Stopped at Kanak Chowk barricade, the agitators sat there while continuing with the demonstration. While addressing the gathering, Negi said that the ruling party leaders had hoodwinked them.
“They unanimously passed the bill- providing 10 per cent horizontal reservation in the Government jobs for statehood activists-in the previous Gairsain Vidhan Sabha session. The bill being passed in the Vidhan Sabha, they must act on it now,” he said. He further said that things had remained stuck at Rajbhawan with the Governor having neither given his assent to it nor returned it to the Government.
“One year has passed and things are vegetating there. We have taken up the matter with the Governor in the past, but the impasse is still continuing,” he said, adding that things were all the more painful for them with the Government having recently started filling the vacant posts in several departments. “We are being left high and dry with the logjam continuing on the bill,” Negi said.