New Delhi: Call it the humbling effect of the 2024 election results, the triumph of public protests or the looming challenge of by-polls for ten assembly seats, the Yogi Adityanath-led BJP government in Uttar Pradesh is finally learning to respond to public pressure.
On Tuesday (July 16), in a matter of hours, two moves of retreat by the state government indicated that it was indeed pushed on the backfoot by public sentiment, a rare instance for a party that often does not shy away from enforcing its will or agenda regardless of public opinion.
Adityanath not only allayed the fears of residents in three localities of Lucknow regarding the impending use of bulldozers on their homes, but also caved in to the pressure of government school teachers demanding a halt to the compulsory digital attendance system imposed on them by his government.
After widespread protests, both on the streets and online, by school teachers and their associations, the Adityanath government on Tuesday met a delegation of teachers’ unions and decided to pause the digital attendance system.
The move would impact six lakh teachers.
School teachers in the state were up in arms after the government implemented the digital attendance system from July, where they would be required to mandatorily mark their attendance online with their real-time location in school prior to the start of regular classes. In other words, they had to register their attendance between 7:45 am and 8:00 am, before classes started.
During their state-wide protest and boycott of the real-time attendance system, which was compounded by heavy rainfall conditions, the teachers pointed out that the move was not at all practical or feasible. Not only is internet connectivity poor in remote rural areas, but the state of the roads do not always support reaching school on time. Many teachers travel to school from far-off areas.
After a meeting with representatives of the school teachers’ associations, UP chief secretary Manoj Kumar Singh announced that the government was forming an expert committee to look into the grievances and suggestions of school teachers.
The committee, which would include members of the teachers’ associations, would submit a report, on the basis of which a decision regarding digital attendance will be taken. Till then, the system will be halted.
On the same day, Adityanath met a delegation of residents from Lucknow’s Pant Nagar, Indraprasth Nagar and Rahim Nagar and assured them that their homes will not be demolished. Adityanath resolved their “fear and confusion”, and in “clear terms” said that the government was committed to their safety and peaceful existence, a government spokesperson said.
Yogi’s word of assurance against the use of bulldozers came after ‘red marks’ put up on many houses in these localities – all within 50 metres of the ‘green belt’ of the Kukrail riverbed – by officials of the state’s irrigation department triggered an impending fear of demolition among the residents.
Also read | Bulldozers in the Modi Decade: A Symbol of Quick ‘Justice’ and Collective Punishment
The panic-stricken residents feared that they would face the same fate as the residents of the Akbar Nagar locality, which was recently cleared out as part of the government’s plans to revive the Kukrail river and redevelop the area.
The residents of Akbar Nagar had even approached the Allahabad high court for relief but the petitioners, a majority of them Muslims, had to face demolitions. The government razed 1,800 constructions and houses, calling them encroachments.
Many women residents in Pant Nagar and the other two localities protested against the alleged survey of encroachments on the floodplain of the Kukrail canal. In one such protest, local women sat silent on chairs, with their documents in their possession, and covered their mouths, ears and eyes, inspired by Gandhian tactics of peaceful resistance.
Many locals also pasted pages of their land registry documents and other valid papers on their walls to showcase themselves as legitimate owners. The Indian Express reported that according to Rakesh Mani Pandey, the coordinator of a resident group formed against the demolition, red marks had been put on 677 buildings, all houses.
Adityanath told the delegation of residents that the river’s floodplain zone had been marked as per the orders of the National Green Tribunal. The floodplain zone includes private land, but there was neither any current need nor any proposal to vacate private land, he said while assuring them. There was also no issue pending regarding the demolition of private buildings built on private land, he said.
Adityanath, whose tenure was built on the celebration of using state bulldozers on property belonging to alleged criminals and political detractors, acknowledged that the signs put up on buildings during the survey of the floodplain zone had spread fear and confusion among the public.
“There was no justification for this. Accountability should be fixed for this. Officials should immediately visit the area, meet the people. Remove their fear and confusion,” he said.
The CM said that orders had been given to remove the signs placed on buildings and constructions during the marking of the floodplain zone. He also assured residents that if there was any building or construction on private land in the river bed, which is certified as owned by a private person, it would be acquired only after giving adequate compensation as per the rules.
After Adityanath’s assurances, the government ran a PR campaign on X, circulating short videos of locals thanking the government for its mercy.
#UPCM श्री @myogiadityanath जी द्वारा लिए गए निर्णय से हमारा पूरा परिवार खुश है।
धन्यवाद मुख्यमंत्री जी…
-निधि सिंह जी
निवासी, पंतनगर कॉलोनी#जन_जन_के_योगी pic.twitter.com/69erhRBWiO— Government of UP (@UPGovt) July 16, 2024
By-polls are due in ten seats in UP, including many where the sitting MLAs were elected as MPs in the 2024 election.
Samajwadi Party president Akhilesh Yadav took a dig at the BJP government and said that the rollback of the digital attendance rule and the decision regarding bulldozers were induced by a “fear of defeat” in the by-polls.
Yadav said: “The real face of the BJP has been exposed in front of teachers and common people. Teachers and common people will defeat the BJP not only in by-elections, but in every [upcoming] election. The public has run the bulldozer of people’s power over the bulldozer of the arbitrariness of the BJP government.”
BJP ally Sanjay Nishad, who seldom misses a chance to take potshots at his alliance partner, also jumped into the matter and hinted that the ruling party could have to pay the price for demolishing the homes of poor people. “Uproot the poor and they will uproot us in politics,” he said.
That the bulldozer controversy was bringing bad press for the government became evident when Prashant Kumar, the top-most police officer in the state – the director general of police – also issued a clarification regarding the use of the bulldozers. People have spread some “misconceptions” about the bulldozer, he said, stressing that “under any circumstance, the bulldozer will not be used against any poor person”.
The trusted officer of CM Adityanath also said that strict action will be taken against anyone who uses the bulldozer against any poor person. “The bulldozer is used only to vacate illegally encroached land or demolish illegally built structures on them,” he said in a video statement.
