On Friday, within the assembly campus in Himachal Pradesh, the opposition BJP and ruling Congress MLAs engaged in protests, exchanging accusations of deceiving the public and failing to fulfill commitments. Under the leadership of the assembly’s Leader of the Opposition, Jai Ram Thakur, BJP representatives voiced criticisms against the government, alleging that the Congress administration had misled around 10 lakh unemployed youth in the state. Congress MLAs, meanwhile, displayed placards asking where the Rs 15 lakh was the BJP promised to every citizen of the country and why the recent calamity in the state during the monsoon season was not declared a national disaster.
The ruling party legislators also raised slogans such as “BJP Hain Toh Dhokha Hain” and questioned the BJP’s promise of two crore jobs to youths.
On the fourth day of the winter session, BJP legislators said giving jobs to five lakh youths was one of the main guarantees the Congress made before the assembly polls, and tore and burnt symbolic degree certificates as a protest. Thakur alleged that the state of employment generation was so bad that unemployed youths were thinking of burning their degrees.
“The Congress had promised to give five lakhs jobs to unemployed youths in five years and had said that one lakh jobs would be sanctioned in the first Cabinet after the formation of the government, but no youth has been given a government job even after one year,” he added.
Results of lakhs of job aspirants who have given various examinations have been delayed and the situation is such that the youth is feeling cheated, running from pillar to post with degrees, Thakur said.
Rather than providing jobs, the state government terminated the services of about 10,000 outsourced employees, including 2,000 in the health sector who rendered their services during the COVID-19 pandemic, he added.
Taking a dig at the Congress, the BJP leader said the Sukhu government has given jobs to its “favourites”, who have been accommodated in the posts of advisers, officers on special duty (OSDs) and chief parliamentary secretaries (CPS) while the youngsters were still waiting for jobs.
Earlier, protesting against the alleged non-fulfilment of poll promises of buying cow dung at Rs 2 per kg from farmers, the BJP leaders had on Wednesday said that the Congress “misled and cheated” the people by making false promises, but the BJP would not let the Congress forget its guarantees.
On Tuesday, the BJP MLAs protested by wearing white aprons with “unfulfilled” Congress guarantees printed on them and raised anti-government slogans.
