Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh on Friday gave data relating to employment generation to buttress his claim that more than 11 lakh jobs were created during his term in office so far.
Singh pointed out that more than 12 lakh jobs were created, a day after the Akalis questioned his 11 lakh jobs claim made while canvassing votes for Congress candidates during the Delhi assembly poll campaign.
Calling Shiromani Akali Dal chief Sukhbir Singh Badal and his leaders as a bunch of ignorants, the 77-year-old said they had absolutely no clue what was happening in Punjab.
In their perpetual haste to react to every word uttered by him (chief minister), they had become habitual of putting their foot in their mouth at the drop of a hat, without checking the veracity of their comments, Singh said in a statement here.
It was the SAD that should apologise for once again misleading the people with their brazen, baseless and unfounded lies, he claimed.
On Thursday, the SAD had reportedly said the youth of the state were waiting for the chief minister to release data of 11 lakh jobs that he had claimed to have generated.
To this, Singh said the actual figure for jobs generated since April 1, 2017, was even higher than the 11 lakh mentioned during campaigning for Congress candidates in Delhi.
As per official data available, the number of government jobs generated from April 1, 2017 to December 31, 2019 was 57,905 with3,96,775 under private placements and another 7,61,289 facilitated by his government in the self-employment category, Singh claimed.
For the convenience of Sukhbir and company, let me tell them that these figures total up to 12,15,969, which was considerably higher than 11 lakh earlier mentioned, off the cuff, during the Delhi campaign, the chief minister claimed.
This was in addition to the 20,21,568 households given employment under the MGNREGA scheme, which translated into a whopping 648.26 lakh mandays.
Singh dared the Akalis to release figures for employment in the 10 years of their misrule adding that his government had already done more in three years than they had delivered in a decade, on every important parameter.
Their (SAD's) pathetic attempts to mislead people of Punjab with their shameless lies would not succeed and in fact, they would only plunge the Akalis further into the abyss of political oblivion, the chief minister charged.
Singh said his government was committed to ensuring jobs for all the eligible youth in the state and take its flagship 'Ghar Ghar Rozgar' scheme to its successful culmination.
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