Press Statement of All India Trade Union Congress (AITUC)
All India Trade Union Congress, UP
PRESS STATEMENT
25 June 2025
We Stand with the Power Employees: Jail Threats Cannot Silence the Voice against Injustice and Loot
The statement made by the Chairman of Uttar Pradesh Power Corporation Ltd. (UPPCL), Dr. Ashish Goyal—threatening power employees with jail and instructing officials to collect lists of those willing to be imprisoned—is a direct affront to democratic values, reminiscent of the dark days of the Emergency. On the 50th anniversary of that dark chapter in Indian history, it is shocking that a top official has chosen to replicate the same language of repression and arrogance.
We strongly condemn this outrageous and undemocratic threat. The power employees of Uttar Pradesh are not criminals; they are the backbone of the state’s energy infrastructure. They are defending public property, public interest, and the integrity of essential services against a reckless, corrupt, and anti-people agenda of privatisation. If raising one’s voice against injustice, loot, and administrative high-handedness is considered a crime, then every citizen of conscience will stand in solidarity with these brave workers.
We extend our full and unequivocal support to the Vidyut Karmchari Sanyukt Sangharsh Samiti, Uttar Pradesh, and its call for a Jail Bharo movement if privatisation tenders are floated. The threat of jail may frighten the corrupt, but not the workers who have filled jails in 2000 for the dignity of their labour and will not hesitate to do it again in 2025.
Today’s mass protest meetings held across districts and power projects—from Varanasi to Noida, from Obra to Anpara—are a testament to the collective spirit and unshakeable resolve of power employees. The government and power corporation management must realise that authoritarianism has no place in a democracy. When policy decisions are based on falsified data, and when dissent is met with threats, the movement becomes not just a necessity but a moral duty.
We call upon the people of Uttar Pradesh, consumer rights groups, farmers’ organisations, and every citizen who values democracy and public welfare to unite with power employees in this just struggle. This is not merely a fight to save jobs—it is a fight to save public resources from being handed over to private profiteers in the name of reform.
We say to the Chairman and the powers-that-be:
You may fill registers, but we will fill the streets.
You may threaten with jails, but we will march with truth.
And when truth marches, repression always retreats.
In solidarity,
(Chandra Shekhar)
General secretary
All India Trade Union Congress, UP
Issued in support of Vidyut Karmchari Sanyukt Sangharsh Samiti, Uttar Pradesh