Terming Union Railway Minister Piyush Goyal’s announcement of jobs in Railways as a political stunt, Rashtriya Lok Dal state president Masood Ahmad said the Bharatiya Janata Party was trying to woo voters assessing its imminent defeat and was once again fooling people by making false promises.
“The model code of conduct will come into effect after the Election Commission announces the schedule for Lok Sabha elections. When that happens, it will not be easy to start a recruitment drive on such a large scale in the limited time left for election. The BJP leaders will then make the lame excuse in their campaigns that they had announced recruitment but could not carry it due to elections. Why did they not announce it when they had time?” he asked.
Ahmad said the BJP leaders cheated innocent people by making false promises of job, security, development.
“During their stay in power, they did nothing to keep their promises. They later diverted attention of people by raising the mandir issue. At the fag end of their rule, they are announcing recruitment drives and new projects. All these are poll gimmicks and the people will teach them a lesson in the 2019 election,” the RLD state chief said.
All-India Railway Men’s Federation general secretary Shiv Gopal Mishra said, “I welcome the decision. We have been demanding for a long time that the vacant posts be filled. Luckily, the government heard us at last. The Railway Ministry earlier had assured to carry out recruitment for 90,000 posts but later increased the number of posts by four lakh. The recruitment is long overdue as the work load on employees has increased. We demand that the government start the recruitment process with immediate effect.”
The AIRF leader said that his union had observed work to rule to press the demand on recruitment. “I think our sustained efforts have finally yielded results,” he said.
Northern Railway Men’s Union leader RK Pandey welcomed the government decision and said the government should start the recruitment process at the local level immediately.