Braving the scorching sun hundreds of educated job seekers in Kerala crawled on their knees and rolled on the roads in front of the government secretariat in Thiruvananthapuram on Monday as part of intensifying their ongoing stir seeking speeding up of recruitment from the rank list of the Kerala Public Service Commission (KPSC) before the expiry of the term of the lists.
However, the CPI(M) led Left Democratic Front government is not only turning a deaf ear towards the plight of rank holders, but also going ahead with rampant regularisation of temporary staff in various government institutions. Already many were regularised and the Cabinet on Monday also decided to regularise 151 more.
While the government was justifying the regularisation of temporary employees citing humanitarian considerations that they were serving for more than ten years, the PSC rank holders were asking why the government was not showing humanitarian consideration to them. CPI(M) leaders were even making critical and insulting remarks against the agitating job seekers alleging that the stir was sponsored by Opposition political parties.
The stir by job seekers already became a major political issue in Kerala which is heading towards Assembly elections and the Opposition Congress and BJP are trying to make use of it. Congress leader and former Chief Minister Oommen Chandy visited the agitating job seekers and assured his party’s support. Various left-front youth outfits initiated discussions with the agitators, but talks remained inconclusive.
The government is reiterating its stand that only around one-fifth of candidates who got a place in rank lists of the KPSC could be given postings as the number of candidates included in each rank list is five times more than the actual vacancies. However, the candidates are demanding that instead of regularising temporary employees in various government institutions, candidates from the existing rank list of KPSC should be recruited. However, the government is not accepting the demand.
Even as the government recently decided to extend the term of all KPSC rank lists up to August, the rank holders alleged that delay in reporting vacancies was the root cause for delaying recruitment from lists.