KMC issues show-cause notice to officials for cancelling Vishwakarma Puja holiday
Kolkata (The Uttam Hindu): Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC), on Wednesday, issued a show-cause notice to a senior official in charge of the corporation's Education Department reportedly for cancelling the Vishwakarma Puja holiday and announcing two-day Eid leaves in its schools.
The show-cause notice has been slapped on the Chief Manager (Education) of Kolkata Municipal Corporation Siddhartha Sankar Dhara and the issuing official is the Municipal Commissioner Dhaval Jain.
In the showcase notice, Dhara has been accused of issuing the notice changing the date of holiday for JMCP schools without obtaining prior approval from the appropriate authority.
"Whereas your issuing notice altering the list of holidays is not in alignment with the declared list of holidays of this Corporation is treated as an undesirable act leading to spreading misinformation," the show cause notice read.
The Municipal Commissioner has also directed Dhara to reply to the show-case notice within three working days stating why action should not be taken against him. However, nowhere in the show-cause notice, the two occasions of Eid and Vishwakarma Puja were mentioned.
KMC insiders said that based on his reply, the authorities will decide the next action.
Shortly after the notice for two-day Eid holidays and cancellation of the Vishwakarma Puja leave surfaced earlier this morning, the KMC authorities came under scathing criticism.
BJP State General Secretary Jagannath Chattopadhyay claimed in a video statement that such a decision hurt the sentiments of the traditional Hindu Bengalis in the state.
"What more can be expected from the Kolkata mayor Firhad Hakim, who describes his constituency in Kolkata as 'mini-Pakistan' or urges people from his community to become the majority in the country by increasing population? This is not unexpected from a mayor who has the patronage of the Chief Minister who recently described Maha Kumbh at Prayagraj in Uttar Pradesh as 'Mrityu Kumbh'. In the entire country, the EID holiday is for a single day. But in KMC headed by Hakim, the EID is a holiday for two days," Chattopadhyay said.
