Uttar Pradesh Congress on Friday hit out at the Bharatiya Janata Party government, saying that the unemployment rate was highest under the present regime.
Congress general secretary and incharge of UP, Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, also lashed out at the government, claiming that suicides due to unemployment had increased many times.
“If one compares suicides, 11,724 suicides were reported in 2021 which is 26 per cent more than the year 2020,” Priyanka Vadra asserted while attacking the government over the “rising unemployment”.
She asked how long the BJP would continue to cheat youths with “jumlas”.
Meanwhile, attacking the government on Friday, Uttar Pradesh Congress spokesperson Sanjay Singh said that according to the CMIE report, the unemployment rate reached a 1-year high of 8.3 per cent in August. He said in the month of August itself, 24 lakh people became unemployed.
“The country has never seen such a horrific situation in the last 45 years. Be it city or village, the number of unemployed is increasing everywhere after demonetisation and novel coronavirus pandemic. The unemployment rate in the city is 9.6 per cent and in the rural area it is 7.7 per cent,” he claimed.
Singh said in the last 45 years the unemployment rate was currently the highest in India. “Due to unemployment, crime has increased in society, domestic violence has increased, parents are stopping sending children to school, incidents of suicide have increased,” he added.
The UP Congress leader said the condition of 45 per cent of the youths was such that they had given up hope of employment. He said most of the people who committed suicide were poor, labourers, farmers and the highest numbers of suicides were being committed in Uttar Pradesh.
The Congress leader said that due to drought in Uttar Pradesh, agricultural activities were less. He said it was expected from the government that the budget of MGNREGA would be increased so that employment could be provided but the Yogi Adityanath government was not doing this.
He said that the Narendra Modi government had promised to provide two crore jobs annually in 2014 and had talked about filling 10 lakh vacancies at the Centre after the 2022 Uttar Pradesh elections but both the promises had turned out to be “jumlas”.
“In the last eight years, 22 crore youths applied for employment but only seven lakh youth got jobs. Employment is not a priority of the BJP’s double engine government. On the other hand, inflation has skyrocketed due to the ‘Gabbar Singh Tax’ (GST). The life of the people has become very difficult,” he charged.
Singh said on September 4, the Congress would hold a rally in Delhi's Ramlila Maidan to make the people aware of inflation and unemployment. He said the main objective of Rahul Gandhi's Bharat Jodo Yatra starting on September 7 was to make the public aware of inflation and unemployment and to oppose the anti-employment policies of the Central government.