Annaji in real life, Anjali on appointment letter, Palghar teacher ‘could lose job due to clerical error’

“I was directly employed after finishing Class XII as part of a special drive for schools in Thane and Palghar by the Palghar zilla parishad (ZP) in 2011, after appearing for the Common Entrance Test (CET). The letter that came to my village near Gadchiroli got everything right, except my name which was Anjali on the letter,” he said.

According to Kulsenge, when he approached the block office, he was asked to submit his documents and told that the error will soon be “fixed”.

“All my documents since then have arrived under the name of Annaji. I thought the error was solved,” he said. However, five years ago, Kulsenge was in for a rude shock when he planned on applying for a transfer. “A friend from the ZP told me that I should first apply for changing my name in the official records. That’s when I found out that none of my original records could be found,” he said.

Kulsenge, who went looking for his records on his own, could not find it at the Talasari office, he said. “When I would go to the Palghar zilla office, I would be asked to go to Thane. When I would go to Thane, I would be told that officially, I didn’t teach in Talasari, but some Anjali did. The Thane officials even said if I tried further, I could lose my job,” he said.

Kulsenge then approached ZP member Vrushali Shevale, who raised the matter at the general body meeting last week. “The man has a letter from the village sarpanch that no Anjali Kulsenge ever lived there. Yet, such a big deal is being made out of a clerical error,” she said.

However, Sangita Bhagwat, ZP education head, said, “How can someone not get it changed then? Why would he join with a letter that didn’t have his name? And why was he silent all these years? We are going to investigate this and ensure that he isn’t actually taking away some Anjali’s job. I have spoken to my counterpart in Palghar. We will initiate an inquiry and will either change his name or put him behind bars, based on our findings.”

The teacher, on the other hand, said, “How can someone called Anjali live on my address? I have been working for so many years and if I was the one who had taken someone’s job, why would I bring it up now?” he asks.