New Delhi: Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Friday, July 15 attacked Prime Minister Narendra Modi over the issue of joblessness, asking if India’s unemployed youth can use “unparliamentary” words – misled, betrayed and cheated – “for your lies” of providing two crore jobs every year.
Gandhi shared a graph based on the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE) data which showed that unemployment had doubled in five years from 2017-18 to 2021-22.
The graph showed the percentage of unemployment in the last five years with the poser: “Where are the 2 crore jobs/year, Prime Minister?”
“Misled. Betrayed. Cheated. Prime Minister, can India’s unemployed youth use these ‘unparliamentary’ words for your lies?” the former Congress chief said in a tweet.
Gandhi’s attack also comes after opposition uproar over certain words of common use being categorised as unparliamentary in a booklet by the Lok Sabha Secretariat.
The unemployment rate in India is 7.3% as of July 14th 2021 based on the data provided by the CMIE. Earlier, the unemployment rate in India shot up from 6.5% in March 2021 to 8% in April 2021, to 14.7% by May end, while the employment rate fell from 37.6% in March to 36.8 per cent in April, says the report of CMIE. Haryana has the highest unemployment rate in the month of June, clocking in at 30.6% with Madhya Pradesh recording the lowest rate at 0.5% for the same month.
A major reason dictating the growing unemployment in the country has been the COVID pandemic and the subsequent lockdowns that had been imposed by the government to contain it. Several industries had to shut down after incurring considerable losses during the lockdown, laying off scores of workers.
(With PTI inputs)