GUWAHATI: Sacked Tripura government teachers are visiting offices and shops with begging bowls as their indefinite sit-in protest demanding reinstatement entered the 37th day on Tuesday.
Thousands of them continued with their protest in the state capital Agartala braving the winter chill.
The state’s BJP-led government advised them to apply afresh in vacant posts of different departments including education, for which separate notifications have been issued, but they are insisting on their reinstatement.
Altogether 10,323 teachers, recruited over a period of time during the previous Left Front government, were terminated from services between 2011 and 2017 in deference to court orders.
Some aggrieved parties, including candidates, had moved the Tripura High Court alleging discrepancies in the processes of recruitment and it ruled in their favour. Later, the state government had challenged the verdict in the Supreme Court but it had upheld the HC’s order. The apex court had, however, twice extended the period of their service with the last expiring in March 2020.
The agitating sacked teachers claimed they had lost 81 of their colleagues due to various reasons including illness. Three of them, including a lady teacher, had allegedly committed suicide.
The state’s Education and Law Minister Ratan Lal Nath squarely blamed the previous Manik Sarkar government. He said the teachers had lost their jobs due to the mistakes and wrong decisions of the Sarkar government. “A government cannot recruit people without making them face an interview or follow stipulated guidelines,” he said.
Sarkar, now the Leader of Opposition, said his government had created 13,000 posts to accommodate these teachers. “Ahead of the 2018 Assembly polls, they (BJP) had promised to regularise their jobs if voted to power but has done nothing,” Sarkar told journalists.
Of the 10,323 teachers, 1,365 either got alternative jobs or availed of different income avenues.
The Joint Movement Committee, spearheading the protest, described the government’s offer as “unreasonable” stating that most of the sacked teachers crossed the age limit.