In a development that could shock the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government in Gujarat, its 225,000-odd temporary workers have sought the help of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) to secure a square deal from the Modi regime.

Despite a Gujarat High Court order to appoint the contractual staff as regular employees, the state administration has continued to pay a fixed monthly salary of Rs5,300 to thousands of ‘assistants’ appointed in its schools, administrative offices in villages as also in the police department, and instead challenged the verdict in the Supreme Court.

According to Gujarat AAP convener Sukhdev Patel, the chief minister had been showering praise on the state’s 12 million youths in his speeches at every extravaganza, but had been citing shortage of funds in courts while dilly-dallying in paying the just dues of the young ‘vidyasahayaks, police lok rakshaks and gram mitras’.

“The state government had been delaying the case in the apex court for the past two years but AAP will stand by the fixed wagers”, he said, adding that these Class III and Class IV contract workers had been doing the same — or even more — work as regular staff but were paid a measly amount.

According to well-known advocate Rajendra Shukla, who has been taking up the cudgels for the underpaid men and women, the Gujarat government was practising the ‘unlawful’ and unfair’ labour practice with its policy of ‘state-sponsored financial exploitation’, which, he said, was not followed anywhere in the country.

State AAP media in-charge Harshal Nayak said that a NGO on behalf of the fixed wagers had written a letter to the party which would soon spread one more lie of the Modi regime on the sorry plight of thousands of its contract staff.

The Supreme Court, which is now examining the constitutional validity of such appointments in Gujarat, Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, had last year come down heavily on the Modi government’s contract system for hiring primary teachers and others on fixed wages for five years without any benefit given to regular staff.

A state government official said that absorbing temporary staff as permanent employees would shrink the cash-strapped state exchequer’s kitty by Rs150 billion.

The Gujarat administration had also been arguing that even thousands of contract workers in municipal and other local bodies would demand salaries on par with regular staffers. What’s more, employees who were paid fixed wages, but had quit their jobs before completing five years of service, would also be eligible to get arrears for the duration of their service.

The high court in a landmark verdict on April 11, 2012 had asked the state government to stop the contract and fixed-wages scheme and start employing people on regular salaries. The court also told the government to pay full salary from the date of their appointment to those employed under the fixed-pay scheme for five years.

The Modi regime then knocked at the apex court door as it strongly felt that it had been given a raw deal in the matter.

mahesh@khaleejtimes.com