After staging a series of protests at Lower PMG in Bhubaneswar for long, several junior teacher aspirants on Monday tried to storm the Odisha Assembly premises over demands for employment. However, a scuffle broke out between police personnel, deployed outside the Assembly premises, and the junior teacher aspirants when the latter tried to break the security cordon.
Holding placards that read ‘Job or Jail’, the aspirants had staged a demonstration in front of the Assembly main gate to press for their demand.
“The State government has been neglecting us. Though a lot of our members are staging a hunger strike at Lower PMG, no official has held any kind of discussion with us,” said a protestor.
The aspirants said the government has not issued any notification for recruitment of junior teachers in the last 6 years. “The State government has been giving fake assurances to fulfil our demands for the last 3 years,” he alleged.
He said though most of them possessed the necessary qualifications, including OTET, and other required trainings, no step has been taken by the concerned Minister/s or officials to address their grievances.
“If the government cannot provide us jobs, it should then let us die in the Assembly which is considered to be a temple of democracy,” said an agitator.
Meanwhile, today’s protest by the junior teacher aspirants near Odisha Assembly has again exposed the chinks in the security measures at the high security zone.
Scores of demonstrators managed to bypass the security blanket and managed to stage protest in front of the Assembly main gate. Following the agitation, police and other security personnel whisked away the protestors from the spot.