Chennai: After an intense agitation for nearly nine days, members of the Joint Action Council of Tamil Nadu Teachers' Organisations and Government Employees' Organisations (Jactto-Geo has announced to withdraw its strike for now, accepting the pleas of Chief Minister Edappadi K. Palaniswami and leaders of various political parties.
A decision was made at a high level committee meeting of the organisations here on Wednesday evening. The members also demanded the government to withdraw disciplinary action, drop police cases registered against their colleagues besides release all those arrested.
Nearly eight lakh government employees and teachers took part in the indefinite agitation, which commenced on January 22. "Our first demand that the CM should invite us for talks never happened. Though we had given due notice before launching the strike, personnel and administrative reforms minister D. Jayakumar held talks with us but the talks remained inconclusive. The minister had assured that the Mr Palaniswami would hold parleys with us but it did not materialise," said Jactto-Geo coordinator Vincent Paulraj.
Instead of holding talks to resolve the issue, the government had preferred to initiate action against them, he said.
However, in view of the public examinations and practicals set to commence in February for classes 10, plus-1 and plus-2 students, and taking into account the parents' concerns and accepting the observation of the Madras high court and also the appeal of the Chief Minister on Tuesday evening, besides the pleas by various political parties, the Jactto-Geo has withdrawn the strike temporarily.
"But our demands continue to remain. Thousands of our members including Das and district convenors have been arrested and in addition several teachers have been served with 17 A and 17 B charge memos. The posts of teachers are being filled by recruiting teachers on ad hoc basis. The government should drop all such action," he added.
Mr Palaniswami should find a solution to their just demands, he said and wondered why the Chief Minister who had held talks with them in September 2017 in Salem, now declined to talk.
