Rahul Gandhi launches “Rozgar Do” campaign, lashes out at Modi government

The unemployment in India rising at a similar pace as coronavirus. Millions of people have turned jobless due to the mismanagement of the economy and lockdown. Congress leader Rahul Gandhi launched a campaign asking the government to provide employment to people.

Congress leader Rahul Gandhi has hit out on the Modi government over rising unemployment. Rahul Gandhi accused the Narendra Modi government of failing to meet its promise of jobs for two crore people every year and then enacting policies that "destroyed India's economic structure" and left crores without jobs.

In a 90-second video posted to his Twitter account Mr Gandhi launched the "Rozgar Do (provide employment)" campaign and urged young people without jobs, as well as others, to raise their voices, speak out and "awaken the government from its slumber.When Narendra Modiji became Prime Minister, he promised the youth of this country that he would give employment to two crore people every year. He sold them a very big dream. The truth is 14 crore people have been made jobless by Narendra Modiji's policies," he said.

"Why did this happen? Because of wrong policies - demonetisation, GST and then (coronavirus) lockdown. Because of these three, the government has destroyed India's economic structure. The truth now is India cannot give its youth jobs," Mr Gandhi added.

The Lok Sabha MP from Kerala went on to say that his party's youth wing, the Indian Youth Congress, would take up this issue and conduct outreach programmes to campaign for the "Rozgar Do" movement.Similar video was posted by Congress spokesperson Randeep Singh Surjewala, who said: "It is the right of youth that they get employment. That way both they and the country can progress".Rahul Gandhi and his party have repeatedly targeted the government over unemployment in India; back in February, before the lockdown left lakhs of migrant workers without jobs, Rahul Gandhi hit out at 2020 Union Budget, claiming it had "failed miserably" to provide jobs.

Unemployment in India stood at 11 per cent in June - down from 23.5 per cent the previous month - according to data released by private think-tank CMIE (Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy). However, CMIE also said that unemployment "pre-lockdown" was 8.5 per cent.

Rahul Gandhi has also been critical about the government's handling of the coronavirus crisis, claiming that multiple unplanned lockdown phases have badly affected the economy.

The Congress has added unemployment and the handling of the Covid crisis to the list of what it calls the biggest "failures" of PM Modi's government - the 2016 demonetisation and GST implementation in 2017.