Bizarre Politics

State government employees in Assam are on the warpath demanding a better pay structure than what has been announced by the Tarun Gogoi government following the sixth State pay commission recommendation. The real grouse is against the government’s failure to keep its own words. On the floor of the State Assembly, the government had given its employees the assurance that it would pay them at least a rupee more than what Central government employees are paid. That assurance is a damp squib now. But what is interesting is that Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi should have had the occasion only now to remind State government employees of ‘‘Assam being not a resourceful State’’ and thus to point to the government’s inability to pay them in accordance with what he had himself promised. Given the art of total sabotage of work ethics that Assam’s government employees have excelled in over the years and their perverse logic that they ought to be paid even if they do not work at all, there is no reason why one should support their planned agitation, especially when they have revolted against performance-based incentive — reflecting yet again on their reluctance to accept performance as a basis to decide on their career graph. But what is truly amazing is why the Chief Minister should forget that Assam was not a resourceful State even when he was trying to woo the employees by promising them an impossible pay package! Or was a divine intervention due? THE SENTINEL