In the eye of teacher suicide storm, Punjab education minister Bains, no stranger to row | Political Pulse News

The latest controversy for Bains has erupted after the alleged suicide of an assistant professor, Balwinder Kaur, who despite having an appointment letter was not given a government college post. In a suicide note she purportedly left behind, she blamed Bains and claimed she struggled for two years without a job and suffered two miscarriages in that time.

Kaur’s case was among the 1,158 appointments initiated during the Congress government in October 2021. But the appointments were later quashed by the high court over alleged discrepancies in the selection process.

Protesting teachers have accused Bains of being “insensitive” and failing to get their appointments cleared by the court. For the past two months, the 1,158 Assistant Professors and Librarians Front has been camping at Bains’s native Gambhirpur village in the Ropar district, with Kaur’s suicide exacerbating the issue.

Speaking to The Indian Express, Bains said he sympathised with Kaur’s family but it was wrong to say he was “insensitive”.

“My last meeting with representatives of 1,158 Assistant Professors and Librarians Front was on October 17 and I have video recordings of the same. Since… January this year, I used to have a meeting with them every time before their court hearing… Even as these appointments were done without following proper norms by the Congress government and were quashed by the high court, as a minister, I did all I could to help. We have already filed multiple letter patent appeals against the quashing order,” said Bains.

“For two months now, (teachers) have been sitting on protest at my native village but weren’t disturbed in any way. They have been to my home several times, where they were welcomed. However, I never met Balwinder Kaur in any meeting. We have already sanctioned 621 new posts for hiring in colleges and sent to the Punjab Public Service Commission for approval,” the minister added.

But the Opposition is gunning for Bains, demanding an FIR against him for “abetment” of suicide and his arrest. BJP state president Sunil Jakhar said, “It was astonishing that police has failed to book the minister despite his name being mentioned in the suicide note”.

“This is mocking and ridiculing the struggle of teachers sitting on protest… It is all being done at the behest of the AAP’s big bosses in Delhi… These are the same leaders who promised to make Punjab dharna free but today there’s one happening in every district,” Jakhar said.

Since he was inducted into the Cabinet, Bains has faced a series of rows. Initially, given the jails and mining portfolios, Bains was later also put in charge of school education. However, in January this year, Bains was divested of the jails and mining portfolios as the government faced flak over soaring sand prices and criminals operating from within jail. He was instead handed the higher education portfolio.

In August, Bains’s much-touted “Schools of Eminence (SoE)” project landed in a controversy after a collapsed roof of a dilapidated school building, which was being renovated as an SoE, killed a teacher and injured three others in Ludhiana. The AAP government drew criticism for “blindly promoting the Delhi model of education” instead of “improving basic infrastructure”.

Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) leader Bikram Singh Majithia wrote on X: “AAP government’s crude attempt to repackage a government school into an SoE turns into a Bains-made disaster. I appeal to the Punjab government not to put our teachers and students in danger to score political brownie points.”

When he was the mining minister, Bains was accused of failing to control illegal mining. Congress MLA Pargat Singh had then charged on X, “Illegal mining continues at various places in Punjab. I am sharing another video of blatant mining in (Bains’s) own backyard in Anandpur Sahib. I request you to please take care of your own area before making tall claims and indulging in PR exercises.”

As the jails minister, he claimed in the Assembly last year that gangster-turned-politician Mukhtar Ansari from UP was given “VVIP treatment and five-star facilities in Ropar jail by the previous Congress government”. Leader of Opposition Partap Singh Bajwa had condemned Bains, asking him to resign if he failed to prove his allegation.

From reversing the transfer of 162 teachers abruptly sent to fill vacant posts in SoEs and deputing teachers as bus in-charges to ferry AAP workers to Arvind Kejriwal’s rallies, to a goof-up in the state teacher eligibility test that had to be conducted again – Bains has been targeted by the Opposition on several issues.

He was also called “arrogant” by teachers’ unions and Opposition leaders for allegedly resorting to the same tactics for which the AAP criticised previous governments – subjecting protesting teachers to lathi-charge and show-cause notices.