The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) Youth Wing on Tuesday gheraoed the residence of Punjab Education Minister Vijay Inder Singla in Sangrur in support of ETT-TET pass and contractual teachers and staged a protest. The dharna was led by AAP MLA and Youth Wing state president Gurmeet Singh Meet Hayer, while MLA Prof Baljinder Kaur, district youth wing president Narinder Kaur Bharaj, party leaders Balkar Sidhu and Dr Balbir Singh among others specially joined the dharna. Addressing the gathering, Meet Hayer said that lakhs of youth of Punjab were struggling to get jobs as the Captain Amarinder Singh-led Congress party had promised to provide Ghar-Ghar Rozgar during the 2017 elections. “But even after four and a half years of the Captain government, lakhs of educated youth of Punjab, unemployed ETT-TET pass teachers are sitting on the streets to get government jobs, while thousands of teachers who have been working as contractual teachers for 15 years are struggling to regularise their jobs,” he said.Hayer said that education providers like AIE, EGS, STR and contractual teachers had given their precious time of their lives to government schools and worked on meager salaries of only Rs 5,000 to Rs 10,000. He said that earlier during the tenure of the Shiromani Akali Dal government, these teachers were left in the lurch and now the Captain government of Punjab had been reluctant to regularise the rightful demand and even hold a meeting for a long time.
Hayer said that before the elections, Captain Amarinder Singh had come to Mohali in a dharna and promised that he would regularise the services of the teachers in the very first cabinet meeting; after the formation of the Congress government. Taking a dig at Captain Amarinder Singh, Hayer asked why Captain did not see the youth who had been climbing the tower for three months in Patiala city to get government jobs.He said that the Captain government had betrayed the youth of Punjab by giving jobs to the sons of ministers and MLAs; because if being killed in terrorism was the basis of employment, then the Captain government should provide jobs to the families of lakhs of people who lost their lives during the Dark Age in the history of Punjab. Addressing the gathering, Prof Baljinder Kaur said that the Captain government had committed atrocities on the teachers by reneging on his election promises. She said that the Congress government neither regularised the contractual employees nor had given jobs to the unemployed youth. She demanded from the Punjab government to give permanent jobs to the teachers who have been struggling for their jobs for years.Prof Baljinder Kaur further said that in the 2022 elections, the people of Punjab including the unemployed youth and the teachers doing contractual jobs would hold Captain Amarinder Singh accountable for reneging on his promises. On the occasion, Davinder Singh Badesha, Guniderjit Singh Jawanda, Gurdeep Bath, Chetan Jodhamajra, Jasvir Kudni, Kuljinder Dhindsa, Meghraj Patiala, Rajwant Ghulli, Jatinder Bhalla, Laljit Singh Bhullar, Jameel-ul-Rehman, JP Singh, Kundan Gogia, Avinder Tawar Gogi, among other leaders were present.