Decoding Politics: Why Priyanka Gandhi is firing ’21 jobs’ salvos at Chouhan govt in her campaign?

On Wednesday, two days before polling, Priyanka, while speaking at a rally in Datia, again raked up the charge. “BJP leaders have made thousands of hollow announcements in Madhya Pradesh, which even they do not remember now. The BJP government of Madhya Pradesh has given employment to only 21 people in the last 3 years, whereas Chhattisgarh has the lowest unemployment,” she claimed.

BJP’s response

The BJP has rejected Priyanka’s charge, maintaining that her data was wrong as the government figures showed it “provided over 61,000 government jobs in the last three years”, and that this number would be even higher if contractual staff were taken into account.

Earlier, BJP spokesperson Hitesh Bajpai had told The Indian Express: “38,000 teaching jobs alone have been provided. So from where Priyanka got her figure is curious. All figures are fake, these figures will only malign her image. She should work on her figures next time.”

Priyanka’s number

The figure Priyanka was citing was from a written reply given in the state Assembly by Minister for Sports and Youth Welfare Yashodhara Raje Scindia in March this year.

During the Assembly Session, Congress MLA Mevaram Jatav had shot off a flurry of questions to senior BJP ministers, including on the state of unemployment in the state.

Jatav had told The Indian Express: “I asked the government to furnish the data of how many persons were given employment in government posts. Unemployment is the biggest issue in this state. They have been making big claims and I asked them to put it on paper. What they told us was shocking.”

On March 1, in a written reply to his question, Scindia stated that from April 1, 2020, “21 applicants were provided employment in government and semi-government offices. Apart from this, offer letters were provided to 2,51,577 applicants through the employment fair by private sector employers.”

Her reply added that 39,93,149 people (37,80,679 educated and 1,12,470 uneducated) had registered themselves at employment offices in the state. And that Rs 1,674.73 lakh had been spent in the financial year 2021-22 for operating the employment offices.

The BJP dispensation said the Congress was reading the numbers wrongly, maintaining that “This (21) is the figure of registered youths in employment offices in the state, who got jobs in government departments. But the data of the total number of employed persons in the state comes up to a total of 61,000.”