Jogi cancels Digvijay’s order, reappoints sacked workers

According to sources close to Jogi, he took the decision to reinstate the workers belonging to Chhattisgarh because the class IV employees in the Bhopal secretariat and other divisional headquarters had expressed their unwillingness to be transferred to Raipur.

“There is a shortfall of class III and IV employess in the secretariat in Raipur as well as in the various divisional and district headquarters in the state as very few of them have opted for the new state,” a senior Chhattisgarh official told The Indian Express.

The choice before the new CM was to either recruit people to the vacant posts or bring back those who had been sacked by Digvijay, and he chose the first option due to their past experience in governmental work — not to forget the political benefits the move would bring.

In fact, these sacked daily-wagers could be in for a bonanza since most of them are likely to fill permanent vacancies.

While Digvijay’s decision was taken on the plea of curbing the burgeoningadministrative expenditure and formed part of his austerity measures, it sparked off strong protests by the sacked workers — numbering over 45,000 all over the state — who had been employees of the government for several years without being confirmed.

Despite agitations all over the state, being supported by several senior Congressmen including party stalwart Kamal Nath, Digvijay stuck to his stand and refused to withdraw the order. The agitating workers, led by party MLA Kalpana Parulekar, had taken the matter to party chief Sonia Gandhi for arbitration in July this year. She had then appointed a settlement board to be headed by Digvijay himself to arrive at a consensus, but nothing concrete has come out of it so far.