THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Armed with data, Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan on Tuesday sought to turn the tables on the Opposition over the issue of appointments to government service ahead of the assembly elections. Launching a scathing attack, Pinarayi said the Opposition and former chief minister Oommen Chandy have been misleading job aspirants and people over the appointment row.
The CM’s tirade comes a day after aspirants protesting in front of the Secretariat fell on Chandy’s feet and wept when he called on them on Monday. “If anyone must fall on the feet of candidates, it’s the same person who called on them and created such scenes,” Pinarayi said. Ignoring facts, the UDF has been unleashing a campaign against the government and whipping up issues with an eye on elections, the CM said.
“But that won’t yield results,” he said. His comments assume significance in the backdrop of Chandy taking over the mantle of the UDF campaign and raising issues like Sabarimala and appointments to pin down the state government.
While listing out the comparative statistics of Public Service Commission appointments during the current LDF and the previous UDF governments, Pinarayi hinted the UDF had written to the PSC chairman seeking to reduce the three-year duration of the ranklist for the uniformed forces to one year in 2014.
“A circular stopping appointments in the last grade category was issued when the Congress was in power at the Centre and now they shed tears for the last grade rankholders,” he said. He also said the UDF coordination committee headed by Chandy, in 2002 at Kovalam, recommended to cut short vacancies and freeze appointments following which the state witnessed a 32-day strike. “Nobody can forget these realities,” the CM said.
CM questions Oppn’s 3-lakh figure remark
He said during the previous UDF term, 5,910 contract staff were regularised violating all norms, with even those having two years of service being regularised. “Now, the government is regularising contractors with clear norms. Only those with over 10 years of service, and posts which are not left to PSC, are being regularised,” he said.
He also questioned the veracity of the 3-lakh figure quoted by the Opposition in connection with regularisation when the state has only 5,28,231 government employees. He also said ranklists often have aspirants around fivefold of the vacancies reported. “There is no logic in demanding jobs for all those in a ranklist,” he said.
Regarding the last grade ranklist, the CM said it was extended till August 3 and that rank holders would get appointment in vacancies to be reported during April and May.“There is no point in asking to extend the ranklist for civil police officers which had expired in June 2020,” he said.