Chandigarh: Haryana govt on Monday escalated its confrontation with striking sanitation workers, sacking 32 contractual and regular employees and suspending two others, as the month-long agitation threatened to turn into a wider political and administrative showdown.Of the 32 who have been sacked, seven are regular employees, and the remaining are contractual or outsourced. Both suspended employees are regular.The action against 34 workers came two days after the govt’s Sep 5 deadline for protesters to return to work, marking a shift from negotiations to disciplinary action and potentially hardening the workers’ stand. Urban local bodies minister Vipul Goel said the govt’s appeal had yielded results, with 387 agitating workers joining duty during the day.However, thousands of others continue to be strike.Urban local bodies commissioner and secretary Ashok Kumar Meena said the employees were not being targeted merely for participating in the strike. “We have acted only against those who obstructed other workers from resuming duty. Moreover, those who are facing FIRs for obstruction in govt duty have been targeted. As far as their strike is concerned, it is now totally unjustified,” Meena said.Haryana minister Krishan Bedi had been involved in negotiations with the workers and maintained the govt had exhausted all available options to resolve the deadlock.The agitation had already given Congress ammunition to target BJP govt during the monsoon session of the Haryana assembly. Opposition MLAs accused the govt of reneging on assurances to the workers and allowing the dispute to drag on, with sanitation staff remaining off duty for nearly a month.Govt rejected the charge, saying it had accepted and implemented 12 of the workers’ 13 demands, while the demand for regularisation was still being examined on legal grounds.