SDF supremo Pawan Chamling has come out with some stern words against his counterpart from SKM, present CM PS Tamang.
In his weekly question answer session, Chamling has blamed SKM for misusing their position in coercing people to join SKM using methods that aren’t democratic, even taking a stride more to call their methods “silly” and “ridiculous”.
Below is the transcript of Chamling’s Question and Answer session.
“Q.You have claimed that the SKM party is carrying out a joining racket. Now the Chief Minister, Mr. PS Goley has been visiting villages and collecting documents for direct government employment, housing, contract work, etc. Recently, the former President of the BJP in Sikkim, Mr. DB Chauhan said that there is a job syndicate in the SKM government in which a few party leaders are offering jobs to their favoured candidates. What is happening in Sikkim?
Ans: The SKM party so ridiculously misuse the term “inclusive policy” and organize forced joining. Inclusive policy fundamentally means a policy that “is concerned with the adequate inclusion of all parties in the process of policy design and delivery and, at the same time, with producing the outcome of inclusion”. It never, ever means making people join the ruling party. In a democratic set up, inclusive policy must include people of all political parties, religions, cultures, ethnicities and social groups in framing policy and distribution. But the ill-taught SKM leaders think that inclusive policy means “demanding all the people join the SKM party”! How silly! How ridiculous! Such is the level of thinking of the SKM leaders.
What is happening in the joining programs organised by the SKM party is disturbing. There are different kinds of joining. The poor common people are forced to join the SKM party with the allurement of some welfare schemes. Youth are allured with the fake promise of jobs. The families of government employees are intimidated into joining the SKM party lest their employee family members will be transferred. The families of ad hoc, OFOJ, muster roll employees are also intimidated into joining lest the employees be sacked from their jobs. Many former SDF leaders are offered cash for joining. There are brokers involved. Each broker who brings an opposition leader to the SKM are offered 15 percent of the total amount offered to the joiners. Many retired bureaucrats, Ministers, MLAs, chairpersons, etc. have been intimidated with vigilance harassments. Many of them have been promised a waiver of the loans that they have taken from SBS. Some have been given SBS loans. There is an extremely dirty game going on behind the SKM party’s joining programs.
Sadly, Sikkim’s unemployment problem is making national news headlines. The potential of our youth has just been wasted.
Mr. PS Goley has been too busy pleasing his bosses outside Sikkim and has totally forgotten the pains and struggles of the people of Sikkim for the last four years. Now the panicky CM is once again back with the second phase of his infamous “100 days promise tricks”. He is collecting documents for government jobs for youth, housing for families, and contract works for petty contractors. Where is the budget? The total budget of 52 thousand crore has already been misused. Is this the way jobs are given? There should be an elaborate and systematic exercise of posts creation, advertisement, written exams, interviews (viva voce), roster, etc. Can the Chief Minister just collect documents and give jobs? Is he hiring khetala? He might be fooling the educated youth but he has no idea that he is fooling himself.
Any housing scheme must always be preceded by a systematic survey, formulation of criteria and allotment of budget. The allotment of contract works also has a system. But this panicky Chief Minister is hastily collecting documents to fool everybody. Think of what happened to Ama Yojana which was actually a central scheme though he hijacked it as his own scheme.
The documents were collected from mothers and nothing has been done about it so far.
Let the people of Sikkim know that this is nothing but another “100 Days Promises” trick packaged in another packet. To fool people, he may give a few jobs, houses and contract works here and there but do not be fooled by his illegal tricks. All these tricks are illegal and those who fall for them will eventually regret it.
I want Sikkim to see the danger of Mr. PS Goley’s style of leadership which is completely based on using money to buy support. All the SKM government has been doing is splashing out money power to silence and blind the people of Sikkim. What message are we giving to the future generations of Sikkim? Is it the Chief Minister’s job to sell all the state assets and distribute some of it to buy support to stay in Mintokgang? The state economy is dead. There are no jobs, high inflation and a complete collapse of the rural economy. Sikkim’s money has been drained into the SKM party and Mr. Ps Goley’s families. This trend has to stop immediately and we have a massive chance in 2024. We will pull all the wealth back into the state.”