Chandigarh, September 14: The Punjab Pradesh Congress Committee President, Mr. Mohinder Singh Kaypee, said the regional AICC session of the Northern states to be held at Mohali on September 27 has been postponed. This session is now likely to be held in the last week of December or first week of January.
In a statement issued here today, Mr. Kaypee said all the three regional sessions of the party to be held this month were being re-scheduled in view of the floods and vagaries of nature.
Meanwhile, a delegation of the Pradesh Congress led by Mr. Kaypee called on Punjab Governor Mr. Shivraj Patil seeking his intervention in favour of the agitating ETT teachers in the state and demanded that they be given the status and pay scales at par with the teachers in the education department.
The delegation included Leader of the Congress Legislature Party Mrs. Rajinder Kaur Bhattal, Mr. Avtar Singh Brar, S. Ishar Singh, S. Darshan Singh, S. Harmohinder Singh, S. Balbir Singh Sidhu, S. Amarjit Singh Samra, S.Makhan Singh MLA’s, party General Secretaries Mr. Parminder Singh, S. Raj Pal Singh and Mr. Ram Pal Dhaipai.
Mr. Parminder Singh, who is also the media in-charge of the PPCC, said the delegation proposed that the alternative the state government could consider for the ETT teachers was extending benefits on the UT pattern.
The Congress leaders strongly condemned the repressive policies adopted by the Parkash Singh Badal government in the state to crush the democratic rights of these teachers to resort to peaceful agitation to press their demands. They said it was unfortunate that the state government had responded by unleashing police terror and even women teachers had not been spared. They said the Badal government had failed to solve the problems of every section of society and the government employees. What was all the more reprehensible was that one section of the employees that was police had been set up against other sections of employees.
Mr. Parminder Singh said the future of the younger generation was in the hands of the teachers and in case this section continued to face such humiliating treatment at the hands of the government, it would have long term repercussions as lathis of the police were no solution to the genuine problems of the agitating employees.