Deployment of teachers for J&K poll duty rocks House

LUCKNOW: The deployment of teachers for the Jammu and Kashmir elections evoked a strong reaction from the teachers’ group in the Vidhan Parishad on Friday, resulting in a walk-out by them.
Also generating much heat was the issue of the ‘patta’ allotment of gram sabha land to the Dalits only, instead of the backward classes, as originally scheduled.
Panchanan Rai of the teachers’ group drew the attention of the Chair to the deployment of teachers from the primary and secondary schools as also the polytechnics for poll duty in J&K.
Raising the issue through an adjournment notice Rai said this would adversely affect the teaching and has created a sense of fear in the households whose members were scheduled to leave for the troubled state on Saturday.
He also took the state government to task for having given its assent when states like Punjab and Haryana had refused to send their staff.
Om Prakash Sharma said the dictatorial order stating that such teachers who refused would face the penalty of salary deduction should be withdrawn immediately. He also wondered what prompted the government to drop engineers from the list of employees to be sent for poll duty and what prevented it from sending home guards.
The teachers being sent, he said, knew neither Urdu nor English, hence could be of no benefit. Sharma also read out the essential items which the teachers had been asked to carry with them and wondered whether they were going on election duty or to fight terrorists.
Replying to the notice, leader of the House Swami Prasad Maurya said a total of 2,531 state employees were being sent, of which 500-600 were teachers. They had been deployed at the behest of the Election Commission.
Acting Chairman Manvendra Singh rejected the notice by saying since it was a constitutional provision, it fell outside the purview of the House. Following this, the teachers’ group staged a walk-out.
Leader of the Opposition Ahmed Hasan and Devendra Pratap Singh raised the issue of the violation of the provisions of the Panchayati Raj Act under Rule 39 (Ka). They said without bringing an amendment the financial powers of the block development officer, block pramukh and project directors had been altered.
The Chair directed Maurya to see whether the payments were being made in contravention of the Act, and apprise the House about the same.
During the call attention notice, Bharat Tripathi informed the House about the withdrawal of security from Ajit Singh and the danger he faced from the mafia.
Singh, who had probably made his first appearance in the House, sat only through the pendency of the notice and left shortly afterwards. The Chair directed Maurya to ensure that Singh got back the security which was available to him.