Lucknow: The AICC general secretary Priyanka Gandhi and BSP chief Mayawati raised questions over the Uttar Pradesh government’s decision to relieve 25,000 home guards of their duties ahead of Diwali over budgetary constraints. Meanwhile, state minister for sainik welfare Chetan Chauhan claimed that no home guard would lose their job and will be employed in other departments.
Taking a dig at the Yogi Adityanath-led BJP government in the state, Priyanka Gandhi tweeted on Wednesday morning, “The BJP government has decided to fire 25,000 home guards just ahead of Diwali. The law and order situation in the state has gone from bad to worse. At this time, when more security hands are needed, don’t know what is on the mind of BJP government which is taking such decisions.”
Gandhi has been vocal in attacking the Yogi’s government on various issues including the law and order situation in the state.
Bahujan Samaj Party chief Mayawati also took to Twitter to criticize the move. She wrote, “Why is the UP government punishing 25000 Home Guards and their families by sacking them due to wrong financial policies. This will cause anarchy in the state. Why is the government increasing unemployment instead of giving employment? It will be better if the government pays more attention towards public welfare.”
Chetan Chauhan, however, on Tuesday said, “If the police department is taking 25,000 home guards off duty then the home guard department will try to adjust them in some other departments. It is quite possible that the number of days of duty of Home Guards might be reduced to 15 or 20, but no one will be shunted. I have spoken to the police department along with my own department in this regard.”
Various groups of the home guards staged protests against the government’s decision including a “begging” protest in Azamgarh and other parts of the state.
As per the October 11 orders, the decision to terminate the duty of 25,000 home guards was taken in a meeting headed by the Chief Secretary of UP Anup Chandra Pandey on August 28.
The home department had deployed the 25,000 Home Guards around a year back to fill up the vacancies in the police department.
The Supreme Court had earlier ordered that the daily allowances of the state’s home guards be at par with the police constables’. However, this silver lining wouldn’t come to last.
Earlier, the guards were entitled to a daily allowance of around Rs 5,000, which was raised to 672 rupees following the top court’s orders. This has been cited at the reason for the state police’s budgetary constraints. Those employed as home guards are not given a fixed monthly salary but are paid on the basis of the number of days of duty.
Home guards in UP are mostly deployed for traffic management, which is likely to face issues after the decision to remove them from their duties.
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