BJP holds protests against Thackeray, Pawar, Congress for starting contract hiring

Mumbai: Contract recruitment in Maharashtra government has snowballed into a major political issue. The BJP on Saturday held protests against NCP, Congress and Shiv Sena (UBT) for beginning the contractual hiring. However, NCP and Congress said they never hired for executive posts on contract during their regime. By organizing protests in the state, the BJP has been misleading the people of the state, NCP national working president Supriya Sule said.

Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis on Friday announced cancellation of the recruitment on contract basis in the government departments. Mr. Fadnavis went on saying that it is a "sin" of Uddhav Thackeray-led MVA (Maha Vikas Aghadi) government. He also demanded that the opposition parties should tender an apology to the people, or the BJP would take the MVA’s sin before the people and expose them.

Following Fadnavis’s statement, Maharashtra BJP has started protests across the state against the MVA-alliance of Sharad Pawar-led NCP, Shiv Sena (UBT) and Congress. “We have organised protests in all 36 districts against the MVA in order to portray the real picture about the contract hiring,” said Navnath Ban, media coordinator of state BJP.

Ms. Sule said that the Shinde government revoked the GR of contractual hiring due to opposition’s pressure. When Devendra Fadnavis was a full time chief minister of Maharashtra for five years from 2014 to 2019, why did he not make the changes in the contract hiring, she asked.

Ms. Sule also said that the BJP has organised the protest against only Sharad Pawar. “Sharad Pawar was not the chief minister of Maharashtra or a cabinet minister in the state when a GR (government resolution) was issued for the contractual hiring.

But Eknath Shinde, Ajit Pawar, Dilip Walse-Patil, Chhagan Bhujbal, Uday Samant, Dhananjay Munde, Shambhuraje Desai, Gulabrao Patil, Dada Bhuse and Hasan Mushrif were part of the cabinet….I request Devendra Fadnavis and the state government to take resignation of those persons who had signed the order. I will personally support you. I am sure that Fadnavis and BJP would certainly give me justice,” the NCP national working president sarcastically said.

Calling the BJP’s protest a “fake protest”, Maharashtra Congress chief Nana Patole said that the BJP and its leader Devendra Fadnavis have deprived the youth of the state from jobs. The Congress also alleged that Fadnavis has been trying to mislead people on contract recruitment issues.