Wednesday, 06 March 2024 | PNS | DEHRADUN
All municipal employees along with sanitation workers declared an indefinite strike on Tuesday after the Salt MLA and BJP leader Mahesh Singh Jeena had a heated argument with Dehradun municipal commissioner Gaurav Kumar.
Jeena was allegedly infuriated because the Municipal Corporation of Dehradun (MCD) had purportedly removed the name of his son from the tender which was recently floated to dispose of about five lakh metric tonnes of legacy waste at the old trenching ground on Sahastradhara Road using biomining. Jeena has rejected this allegation.
The whole project is worth at least Rs 27 crore. The MLA arrived at the commissioner’s office at about 3 PM and started having a heated argument with him regarding the tender. He continued to use abusive words against Kumar and demanded the file of the tender, as per the MCD officials and employees who were present there during the whole incident. They claimed that Jeena also called the commissioner a thief and threatened him. Some videos of the incident were also circulating on social media in which the commissioner can be seen asking Jeena not to be abusive and to behave calmly. He also informed him that a committee was formed to monitor the tender process and claimed that he was not aware of any recent developments at that time. Despite this, the officials said that the MLA continued to misbehave with the commissioner. Subsequently, Jeena furiously left the MCD premises.
The commissioner also left the premises soon after the incident while all employees shut their offices. The sanitation workers and members of the Nagar Nikay Karmachari Mahasangh (NNKM) staged a protest against the MLA on the premises. NNKM member Nam Bahadur said that it was quite disrespectful how the MLA entered the commissioner’s office and started abusing him for his personal interests. He said, “This is the first time we witnessed such an impertinent MLA who behaved in this way with a public servant. It is not just about him but several leaders and public representatives like councillors have started misbehaving with sanitation workers and employees just because elections are around the corner. When an MLA can be disrespectful and abusive to an IAS officer, other public representatives will probably treat us worse in the future.” The workers said that they will not resume work till the MLA apologises for his misdemeanour and the police arrest him.
Besides this, the commissioner was also contemplating registering a written police complaint against the MLA but no official report was registered till the time of this news being filed.
