MARGAO
As the half-day strike disrupted Municipal services, including waste collection, Margao MLA Dsigambar Kamat emerged as a saviour for the civic employees and Chief Officer Agnelo Fernandes a villain, even as citizens questioned the rationale behind the strike when the Municipal coffers are empty.
As Kamat brokered a truce between striking Margao Municipal employees and the Municipal administration, paving the way for the payment of the Diwali bonus, many say the unfolding development came as a win-win situation for the Margao MLA in an election season. For, it is an open secret that majority of the Municipal employees, including the safai karmacharis constitute Kamat’s voterbase and a solution to the issue brokered by the Margao MLA, many say would certainly keep him in good stead amongst his voters with less than three months to go for the ensuing Assembly polls.
In fact, word soon went out after the strike was withdrawn that it was due to Kamat’s intervention that the employees would get their rightful bonus early next week.
On the other hand, Chief Officer Agnelo Fernandes came to be painted as a villain by the employees and no powers that came to his rescue to tell the employees that the Chief Officer was not entirely wrong in saying that his priority is not payment of bonus, but to arrange the monthly salaries.
In fact, the Chief Officer was literally left to fend for himself. If sources are to be believed, even the powers that be requested the Chief Officer not to make the absence of the employees from work a matter of prestige with Assembly polls around.
Citizens, who came to the civic body in the morning session for their routine work, however, were left to wonder over the sudden strike call given by the Union over the payment of Diwali bonus when the civic body is struggling to mop up revenue for the payment of monthly salaries.
A senior citizen sought to know whether the employees were justified in striking work when the Municipal administration has been literally struggling to arrange funds for the payment of monthly salaries.
In fact, the senior citizens recalled that the Municipal employees had gone on strike many years ago when the MMC had introduced bio-metric attendance, only to withdraw the strike after the intervention of the Margao MLA Digambar Kamat when he was the State’s Chief Minister.
