JAIPUR, JANUARY 17: The Rajasthan government today alerted the Army as well as the Railways for a possible requisition of personnel to maintain essential services as the indefinite strike by state government employees to press their five-point charter of demands entered the 34th day.Home Minister Pradyumn Singh, who made this disclosure, also hinted at the possibility of some quick recruitments to reduce the damage by the strike.Meanwhile, police guarded all vital water and electricity supply installations as well as government hospitals to check sabotage, while raids continued throughout the state, taking the number of arrests to 451.The Home Minister said there had been over half-a-dozen attempts to sabotage water and electricity supplies at Jaipur. One person had been arrested in this connection.The government crackdown came yesterday as the employees demanding restoration of bonus and a cash payment of dearness allowance vowed to go ahead with paralysing essential services from midnight lastnight. Steering committee leaders, including convener Mahesh Vyas and chief advisor Ram Kishore Aggarwal, were arrested yesterday. While the steering committee claimed that four lakh of the seven lakh government employees had joined the strike, Pradyumn Singh placed the number of the striking staff at 93,904. Education Minister B.D Kalla claimed that 90 per cent of teachers were reporting for duty.Uncertainty continued to dog the panchayat elections scheduled to be held at the end of the month.When contacted, State Election Commissioner Amar Singh Rathore told The Indian Express today that he had asked the government to make alternative arrangements to conduct the polls on schedule and had been assured that this would be done.The Home Minister said that the government was hopeful of making alternative arrangements by roping in Central Government employees and teachers from private schools.Mediapersons also repeatedly asked Singh and Kalla about the whereabouts of Congress MLA Uday Singh Rathore whoalso heads one of the employee-bodies. Singh said the legislator had gone underground and efforts were on to track down and arrest him. But reporters wanted to know why Rathore had been spared of the arrest while other leaders, who were present at a meeting with him yesterday, had been rounded up under the Rajasthan Essential Services Maintenance Act.
