OPS domino strikes BJP in Maharashtra: As govt workers begin strike, Opposition finds a line of attack

More than 17 lakh government, semi-government employees, and teaching and non-teaching staff in Maharashtra demanding OPS are on an indefinite strike starting Tuesday, hampering government operations in different parts of the state. According to officials, the board exam schedule is likely to get affected as non-teaching staff have also joined the stir. The employees’ unions went ahead with the strike despite Shinde and Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis promising to look into their demands and setting up a committee to look into the feasibility of reintroducing OPS. The appeals of Shinde and Fadnavis to call off the strike went unheeded.

The strike will have the BJP and the Shiv Sena worried as it allows the Opposition to attack it. Moreover, the ruling alliance’s defeat last month in two seats of the Legislative Council was attributed to voter unhappiness over the OPS issue.

During the Winter Session of the Assembly in Nagpur Fadnavis ruled out going back to OPS, saying it will result in a huge expenditure and was not feasible. But he softened his stance as the party sensed it was in trouble in the MLC elections and assured that the government was open to taking a look at OPS again after studying all aspects. But it was too little too late as the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) won two seats, including on Union Minister Nitin Gadkari’s home turf Nagpur. Following this, state BJP chief Chandrashekhar Bawankule admitted that “90 per cent of voters were unhappy with the pension issue”. But he pointed out that the Congress and the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) had rolled back OPS in 2005.

But, like in Himachal Pradesh, the Congress is keen on riding the OPS wave. “The inbuilt financial insecurity does not augur well for retired employees. When you link pensions to the market, it instils fear about financial security. Therefore, the Congress is demanding revival of the OPS,” said state Congress chief Nana Patole.

The grand old party’s MVA allies Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray) and the NCP have also backed the strike along with the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), which has asked its workers to participate in the government employees’ street protests.

In the past, the Congress-NCP coalition had also categorically ruled out bringing back OPS. Former Deputy CM Ajit Pawar of the NCP, who held the finance portfolio from 2010 to 2014, argued against OPS, saying a couple of years ago, “A sum of Rs 1.51 lakh crore out of Maharashtra’s total annual income of Rs 4 lakh crore is spent on staff salaries and pensions. Of the 24 lakh people in the salaries and pensions fold, there are almost 5.5 lakh state employees and nine lakh semi state government employees, with 7.5 lakh people under the old pension scheme and two lakh under the new pension scheme.”

But for the Opposition, there is political value now in arguing in favour of OPS to corner the BJP. Last month, amid rumblings of the OPS demand rearing its head in Haryana, CM Manohar Lal Khattar dug in his heels and said “the country would turn bankrupt by 2030 if OPS were implemented”. But with the demonstrations gathering steam and the police last month using water cannons and teargas shells to disperse a gathering of government employees in Panchkula, demanding the restoration of OPS, the Khattar government set up a committee chaired by the chief secretary, the additional chief secretary (finance department), and principal secretary to the CM to hold talks with government employees on the matter. The committee met with the demonstrators earlier this month.

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Government employees in Karnataka last month too threatened to go on strike but called it off after the Basavaraj Bommai-led administration agreed to set up a committee chaired by Additional Chief Secretary (Finance) ISN Prasad to study the implications of reverting to OPS.