Gurung reels off JAKS scores - Job regularisation a priority: morcha chief

Bimal Gurung hands over the party flag to Narayan Chhetri at Singmari; and (right) JAKS president Machendra Subba at the media conference. Pictures by Suman Tamang

Darjeeling, April 29,TT: A rattled Bimal Gurung today said “one of the first jobs of his party” — or rather its would-be representatives — will be to pursue in the Assembly the issue of regularisation of the jobs of casual workers, a section of whom has accused his outfit of taking them for a ride over the years.

The dissenting workers broke away from the Janmukti Asthai Karmachari Sangathan (JAKS), an affiliate of the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha, on Wednesday to form their own apolitical organisation, as they did not “want to be a tool in the hands of vested interests”.

The formation of the new unit prompted Morcha-affiliate JAKS to hold a media conference, highlighting its “achievements” in the past three years.

The spokesperson for the new outfit, Anil Rai, had said on Wednesday: “We (the temporary employees) were only being used as tools but our grievances remain unaddressed.”

Although Gurung made light of the new outfit saying they had been formed by people who were always with the GNLF, he tried to reassure the audience of the role that the JAKS has played in the interest of the casual workers.

“Once we win the Assembly elections, one of the party’s first jobs, apart from achieving Gorkhaland, would be to work for the regularisation of these workers. I have been part of their sufferings since the time I was a councillor (in the DGHC),” the Morcha president said at Singmari, where he handed over a party flag to former ABGL leader Narayan Chhetri. The ex-ABGL spokesperson joined the Morcha today.

At the JAKS office in the Darjeeling Super Market, its president Machendra Subba rattled off a list of achievements that “undid” the wrongs of GNLF chief Subash Ghisingh.

“We were always used as a political tool by Subash Ghisingh, who was earlier the chairman and later the administrator of the DGHC,” said Subba. The breakaway faction, too, had levelled a similar allegation against the Morcha.

“The state government had sent a clear direction to Ghisingh in 1994, following it up by framing recruitment rules for the council to absorb us. He never did it but only used us as a political tool and even made us ban a local daily in Darjeeling (in the late 1990s),” said Subba.

“We were also asked to organise meetings and rallies for 32 days to ensure that he became the administrator of the council (in 2005), a post which is usually occupied by an administrative official and not by a political figure.”

Reeling off another list of goals achieved, Subba said: “In 2002, Ghisingh changed our status from casual workers to contractual workers. Under this category, we had to get our jobs approved by him every six months. However, on June 30, 2008, we managed to get an order after which we no longer needed to apply for our jobs every six months.”

The JAKS was formed months after the birth of the Morcha in October 2007. Its main focus was getting the jobs of over 6,000 contractual workers regularised. Following an indefinite hunger strike by the workers, the state government on September 17, 2009, gave a written assurance to start the process to make them permanent.

Similar assurance was subsequently given by B.L. Meena, the then acting administrator of the DGHC. However, nothing concrete has emerged from those assurances yet.

Today, JAKS president Subba said: “Even on December 22, 2010, an order was issued by the state government stating that those who had completed 10 years of service in the Group-D category would receive Rs 6,600 with an increment of 5 per cent dearness allowance every three years.

“We have, however, demanded that the government should include all the council workers and not just the Group D workers who have worked for 10 years.”

The JAKS said it would start negotiations with the new state government as well. “If nothing works out, we will again start a peaceful agitation,” said Subba.