Bengal govt employees ordered to be in offices on strike day

Chief secretary Basudeb Banerjee on Saturday said that the employees of the state government will have to face stringent action if they do not attend their respective offices on Monday and Tuesday.

Following the announcement of bandh on Monday by the Left Front, the state government clarified that the employees will have to sacrifice one ‘leave’ from their service life and salary of one working day if they are absent in the office on Monday and Tuesday.

However, the chief secretary also clarified that the employees who were already applied for ‘leave’ earlier like the ones who were in ‘child care leave’ or ‘maternity leave’, will not face any action.

He also added that the police will take stringent action against those who would try to disturb the work at government offices. The administration will provide help to the people who will move out from their house to reach at their work destinations.

Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee instructed the officers to take necessary steps to ensure the smooth functioning of the administrative works across the state. The state secretariat source at Nabanna said that the Chief Minister instructed the administration to help the people out in the streets as well.

On Friday the Left Front had made a desperate attempt to outsmart Mamata Banerjee’s efforts to mobilise protests against the Narendra Modi government’s demonetisation decision, by calling a 12-hour bandh in Bengal on Monday. The Trinamool Congress reacted strongly saying it is Left Front who had destroyed the work culture in Bengal. They do not have any right to call a bandh. They are actually helping the BJP here.

The Chief Minister also reacted sharply by asking people not to support the bandh call. The Left bandh call coincides with Mamata’s proposed march against the Modi government. “The bandh proposal didn’t come at the meeting of the Opposition parties in Delhi. We do not support any bandh. People are suffering, so I appeal to all parties to stand by them at this hour of crisis,” she said.

In fact, the bandh call didn’t figure in the agitation programme announced by the Left Front chairman Biman Bose on Thursday evening. Trinamool’s Partha Chatterjee said: “Our protest rally may add to the uneasiness of motorists for two hours. But the Left plans to bring life to a halt for 12 hours. I don’t think it will find public support.”

It should be recalled that the Chief Minister earlier declared that no man days will be lost in Bengal soon after she came to the power for the first time in 2011. She gave a strong message against bandh to the industrialists ensuring that the state will not support any bandh.