The Congress today picked holes in the BJP-led central government's claims of job creation and wondered if it was celebrating "joblessness" or "jobless growth" on completion of its three years in power.
It claimed that job growth remained static at 1.35 lakh in 2016-17, while it was as high as 9.29 lakh in 2010-11 under the UPA, and said the government was only doing 'jumlebaazi' during a season of "pink slips".
"The BJP had promised in election manifesto creation of two crore jobs every year. This is the claim and this is a false promise. Actually on ground, we are having a 'Pink Slip Season' signifying termination of employment," AICC spokesperson Abhishek Singhvi said.
He claimed that the BJP is planning a multi-thousand crore "birthday bash" using all acronyms that are focused on PM Modi, while "alarming figures" are published other quarter showing little or no growth or abysmal growth.
The Congress leader said the celebrations are termed as "Making of Developed India", which is otherwise a "Modi Fest" where the government is making all kinds of claims with "advertorial blitz".
"On the one hand, the youth and people of India are facing a grave future, a bleak future. Job creation or all this touting of growth is nothing but jobless growth. Seeing government figures, one can only be reminded of the phrase 'Much ado about nothing'," he said.
Stating that the government does nothing but "jumlebaazi" (rhetoric), he wondered if it was celebrating "joblessness".
Singhvi said in 2016-17, the job growth has remained static 1.35 lakh, while in 2009-10 job creation was 8.7 lakh and further up at 9.29 lakh in 2010-11.
After the Modi government came to power in 2014-15, this fell to 1.35 lakh, he said, adding that in eight labour- intensive sectors, the growth of jobs is 1.1 per cent (or 1.35 lakh jobs).
"The government's definition of 'Achhe Din' is one without jobs. Every quarter alarming figures are published showing low growth and job losses," he said.
"The Congress will expose the government in the next two weeks and make people across the country aware about its baseless and false claims in all sectors including agriculture, the Kashmir issue and economy," he said.
Singhvi said the credibility of the government is such that bank credit growth, which is directly linked with the business growth which is directly linked to employment growth, is at the lowest at 5.3 per cent in 2016-17.
"It (bank credit growth) is the lowest in last 63 years," he said, adding that the IIP data, which is the Industrial data counting industrial growth, shows flat trajectory or flat growth line of 0.6 per cent till January 2017, close to a mere half a per cent.
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