The Uttarakhand Kranti Dal (UKD) activists staged demonstration on Saturday against the gross irregularity in the alleged appointment of the son of Uttarakhand Vidhan Sabha Speaker Prem Chand Agarwal in Uttarakhand Jal Sansthan. The agitators also torched an effigy of the Speaker to vent their anger.
Notably, the son of the Speaker was appointed on the post of assistant engineer (AE) in Jal Sansthan from Uttarakhand Purva sainik kalyan Nigam Limited (UPNL) under which only retried armed force personnel and their son or daughters are appointed on contract.
On Saturday, the activists of UKD gathered at their office and marched to the Drona circle where an effigy of the Speaker was consigned to flames. Addressing the party workers, the president of the city unit of UKD, Sanjay Chetri said that the son of the Speaker was appointed in gross violation of all norms and his appointment should be immediately cancelled. He said that the BJP had come to the power while dishing out a promise of providing employment but now the government is meting out a step- motherly treatment to the unemployed of the state. Taking a dig at the state government, the UKD leader said that on one hand, the unemployed demanding jobs are being beaten with batons and, on the other, the kith and kin of the leaders are being favoured unduly. He added that the state government should give a reply on the issue immediately in view of its consistently flaunting zero- tolerance on corruption rhetoric. “The people are demanding an answer and the state government cannot ignore it,” he said.
It is alleged that no advertisement was released by UPNL for the post in which Piyush Agarwal, son of the Speaker, was appointed. It is worth mentioning here that UPNL was created solely to provide employment to the retired armed forces personnel and their children and it is a common knowledge that the Speaker is not an ex- serviceman.