BJP, Congress Support JPS Strike

BJP State president Bandi Sanjay Kumar today asked his party cadres to stand by the agitating Junior Panchayat Secretaries (JPS) of Telangana.

He asked them to visit the homes of the JPSs and express solidarity with them.

He also asked them to hold programs across the State at the field level demanding that the State government regularise their services, and to mobilise the employees of the other departments of the State government in support of the JPSs.

He issued the instructions to the party cadres during a teleconference held by him with district party presidents, Assembly convenors and co-convenors.

He said that the strike by the JPSs was justified. He alleged that CM K Chandrashekar Rao had cheated the JPSs. The JPSs were selected on the basis of an exam, and while there was a probation period of only two years for any government job, the State government had kept the probation period as three years for the JPSs, and despite that was not regularising them.

He said he had already written a letter to the CM on the issue demanding that he regularise their services.

TPCC chief and Congress MP Revanth Reddy too demanded that KCR regularise the services of all the JPSs who had completed their probation periods.

In an open letter to the CM on the issue, Reddy lamented that there was no reaction on the part of the State government although the JPSs were holding protests for the last 12 days. Reminding the CM that the State had won 79 Central government awards for rural governance so far, he said that it was that hard work of the panchayat secretaries that was behind the awards. He asked the CM if the harassment of the Panchayat Secretaries was the reward being given by him to them, and demanded that the CM regularise the services of the JPSs as Grade IV Panchayat Secretaries immediately.