After the Congress extended support to a group of teachers sitting on a dharna in front of the Delhi Secretariat, demanding regularisation of their jobs, the Bharatiya Janata Party and rebel Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) MLA Vinod Kumar Binny have now come out in support of the teachers.
Binny and Bharatiya Janata Party MLA Naresh Gaur on Wednesday addressed the group of over 50 teachers, who have been protesting for a week, after getting no assurance from Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal.
?It (regular jobs) is a dream that the AAP showed them and now, the party is not even ready to listen to them. These people have been sitting at your doorstep for a week… I would have raised the issue in the party meeting, but the AAP has turned a deaf ear to all the promises it made to voters,? Binny said.
Gaur said the party was going back on its words. ?One of the reasons why many contract workers voted for the AAP is that it promised them permanent jobs. The teachers who are on a dharna have not been allowed to put up tents and are sitting in the cold and rain. For Kejriwal?s protest, arrangements for toilets and tarpaulins were made, still they blamed the Centre of cruelty…,? Gaur said.
Gaur said he had come to express solidarity with the teachers after consultations with senior party leaders.
?We believe that their demand is just, and, as the AAP promised them permanent jobs, the demand should be met…,? he said.
Earlier, Education Minister Manish Sisodia had said the government had heard the grievances of the teachers but could not choose them on priority and regularise their jobs. ?It is a due process and we cannot just make a handful of people permanent,? he said.
Last week, Binny had described Kejriwal?s style of functioning as ?autocratic?.
The AAP government, he said, had ?cheated the people?, and not fulfilled its promises.
?So many people had responded to Arvind Kejriwal?s call during the bijli-paani andolan and refused to pay exorbitant bills. They are now required to pay these huge amounts, and this must be waived,? Binny said.
On Tuesday, after Kejriwal called off his protest, the Congress said it was time the AAP honoured the promises it made to voters.
?A group of teachers has been staging a protest for regularisation outside the Secretariat. Kejriwal should at least give them five minutes of his time,? DPCC chief Arvinder Singh Lovely said.
