Sangrur Square: As key bypoll nears, protesters raise their pitch | Political Pulse News,The Indian Express

Farm and labour unions, aspiring clerks, constables and nurses have descended on Dreamland Colony, the private gated society in Sangrur where Mann’s house is located

Candidates in waiting lists for jobs of clerks and constables, nurses seeking permanent jobs, contract workers of the transport corporation — an assortment of labour unions and other outfits have come out to protest or raise their demands in Sangrur, putting the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) in a spot ahead of a key by-election.

The Sangrur Lok Sabha seat, which fell vacant after Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann resigned as MP, goes to the polls on June 23. In the backdrop of a series of setbacks for the Mann government — Moosewala’s killing, the RPG attack on the Punjab Police’s intelligence headquarters and the Patiala clashes between members of a faction of the Shiv Sena and allegedly pro-Khalistani elements — the protests are bad optics for the AAP government.

Sangrur is an AAP stronghold, with nine Assembly constituencies. Mann had won the 2014 as well as 2019 Lok Sabha polls from the seat.

Dreamland Colony, the private gated society in Sangrur where Mann’s house is located, has become the centre point for many of the protests.

Since April 4, days after the AAP government came to power, candidates on waiting lists for clerical jobs in district mini-secretariats have been protesting outside the colony. Nurses, who had been given temporary jobs in a medical college in Patiala during the first two waves of the Covid-19 pandemic, joined them on May 4 to demand that their jobs be made permanent. Days later, on May 8, those on the waiting list for constable recruitment reached the spot. Five days ago, on June 7, contract employees of the Punjab Roadways Transport Corporation set base outside the colony, demanding renewal of their contracts.

https://indianexpress.com/article/political-pulse/sangrur-square-bypoll-protesters-7966161/

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