Scores of teachers of schools under the BJP-run North Corporation held a demonstration outside the residence of the party’s Delhi unit chief on Monday over non-payment of salaries for the past four months, an association of municipal teachers here said. Kuldeep Singh Khatri, head of the Shikshak Nyay Manch Nagar Nigam, said salaries of nearly 9,000 teachers of the North Delhi Municipal Corporation are “due since July”.
“We are struggling to make ends meet. We didn’t want to protest in this COVID-19 time, but what option did we have? So, this morning a large number of teaches gathered outside Delhi BJP chief Adesh Gupta’s residence in Patel Nagar and voiced their concerns,” he said. Some were carrying placards and raised slogans, Khatri said, adding, “We were wearing masks and maintained social distancing while protesting.” Gupta later met a delegation of the protesting teachers and then came out of his house and addressed them. In a video clip of the protest shared by AAP leader Saurabh Bhardwaj, a couple of teachers were seen venting their ire at Gupta.
The Delhi BJP chief, also a former North Delhi mayor, tweeted: “Met & addressed the MCDs teachers delegation. Teachers are not getting salaries as Delhi Govt is not releasing Rs 13000 Cr of MCDs. We stand with our teachers in this distressing time & if needed, will meet Kejriwal also. I have assured them 2 months of salary before Diwali.” The ruling AAP government hit back at the BJP, asking it to demand that amount from the Centre and alleged “corruption and mismanagement in the BJP-ruled civic bodies”. AAP’s in-charge of civic bodies, Durgesh Pathak, issued a statement saying, “The teachers of BJP-ruled MCD schools are on protest demanding their pending salaries”.
He claimed that the AAP government has “already released around Rs 746 crores of their salary funds till October, but MCD has not paid their teachers yet”.
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