All India Congress Committee (AICC) vice-president Rahul Gandhi today hit out at Prime Minister Narendra Modi for his failure to keep his promise on providing one crore jobs to the youth, and said the unemployment rate is the highest in eight years.
“The Modi government generated less than one lakh jobs in 2016. During the poll campaign in 2014, Mr. Modi promised to provide one crore jobs to the youth in five years,” Mr. Gandhi said. At the same time, he lauded the Siddaramaiah government’s achievements and said it had provided jobs to 30,000 in the last one year.
Addressing a public meeting at National College grounds after inaugurating Indira Canteens, subsidised food outlets for poor, Mr. Gandhi mocked Mr. Modi for limiting his Independence Day speech to just 57 minutes, his shortest in four years. “Mr. Modi is reducing the duration of his speeches, as now he has nothing to talk about. Mr. Modi will deliver his last Independence Day speech next year and it will be for just 15 minutes.”
Referring to the Gorakhpur hospital deaths, Mr. Gandhi claimed that the Modi-led government reduced the healthcare budget, leaving no money for the hospital to buy oxygen cylinders. “The PM did not tell you in his Independence Day speech that more than 90 babies died in Gorakhpur due to his healthcare policies,” Mr. Gandhi said.
The Central government has not come to the rescue of farmers who were in distress owing to failure of crops. The Congress-ruled Karnataka and Punjab had waived crop loans. The BJP-ruled Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra followed suit following pressure from the Congress, Mr. Gandhi added.
