A sanitation worker in Uttar Pradesh lost his job after he was found carrying framed portraits of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath in his garbage cart. Officials said services of the sanitation worker, Bobby, who was posted in the Generalganj area of Mathura, were terminated after the incident came to light on Saturday, news agency PTI reported. Videos posted on social media showed him carrying photos of Modi and Adityanath in his wheelbarrow.
One of the videos showed people asked Bobby about the photos with the garbage in his barrow. The sanitation worker responded that he found them lying on a street and he was just performing his task.
Some people retrieved the two frames from the cart. There was a third photo too but it did not appear to be in a good condition. All this was captured on mobile camera and the footage eventually surfaced on social media.
One video also showed a person cleaning the photos, which another person identified as someone from Alwar, Rajasthan, kept in his car to take with him.
“Contractual sanitation worker Bobby was found lax in his work and his services were terminated,” said PTI quoted Additional Municipal Commissioner, Mathura-Vrindavan Nagar Nigam, Satyendra Kumar Tiwari as saying.
Bobby, meanwhile, said he was only doing his job by collecting garbage from streets. He said it was not his mistake that the portraits of the PM and the UP CM were dumped on the road.
"Before initiating action, at least what actually happened, in reality, should be considered and it should have been ascertained whether I was at fault or not," he was quoted as saying in the PTI report.