Jagdish Garcha in jail gets some ‘public sympathy'

LUDHIANA: The arrest of Jagdish Singh Garcha, ex-minister for technical education and MLA, Kila Raipur by the Vigilance Bureau on October 19 has turned the tables around for him in the past one month.
While there was resentment among people in his constituency on the day of his arrest, sources close to the family said that now there was a lot of concern and sympathy for the ex-minister tucked away in the goal.
Garcha had been accused by the VB of nepotism, where he fixed jobs for 95 persons from different villages of his constituency in the Punjab Technical University, Jalandhar.
The university did not release any advertisements or conduct any interviews for these 95 posts.
Shiv Dev of Gopalpur village in the constituency explicitly described the general feeling, when he said, minister saab ne sanu naukree ate rozi roti dawaiee, te ise karke una nun jail bhugtanee pai rahee hain (the minister had helped us get jobs because of which he has to now serve a jail term).
Such a sentiment was being spread by Akali workers and Garcha''s well-wishers in the constituency.
Master Rajinder Singh of Narangwal village said that on an average Garcha managed to get a job for at least one person in all the villages of the constituency, despite the fact that those placed were not highly educated, which was creditable.
The naive people of the villages have their heart going out to their MLA, who has been in the jail for over a month now.
As Jagdish Kaur Grewal of Sarabha village said that when Rajinder Kaur Bhattal had turned down their invitation for the Kartar Singh Sarabha Rural Athletic meet last week, the village panchayat had grossly felt the absence of their MLA.
She added that there was a strong feeling of compunction as to why the villagers had ever thought of inviting the Congress government ministers, and an opinion was aired that they should have rather tried to bring the former chief minister, Parkash Singh Badal in absence of Garcha.
All efforts made by Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh in curbing corruption might be for the welfare of the people, but which part of the state was feeling obliged for the rigorous activities being carried out by the government and Punjab police was little bemusing?