Congress Leader Takes Swipe At PM Modi's Rozgar Mela. Minister Hits Back

Union minister Rajeev Chandrasekhar on Monday hit out at Congress leader Jairam Ramesh, describing him as a "spinmaster" who was stepping into the “flopped roles” of P Chidambaram and former RBI governor Raghuram Rajan and using the word "jumla” to discredit the Modi government's achievements.

The BJP leader's comments came after Mr Ramesh criticised Prime Minister Narendra Modi over the alleged lack of employment opportunities, saying he is holding Rozgar Melas to save his image as he is feeling the "heat of an election year".

In a post on ‘X', the Congress general secretary termed the Rozgar Melas as the "biggest jumlas" (rhetoric) and yet another gimmick, and alleged that the prime minister has "failed” to fulfil his promise of creating two crore jobs per year.

Mr Chandrasekhar slammed Mr Ramesh's remarks on the micro-blogging site, saying, “This spinmaster is stepping into the flopped roles of Chidambaram and Raghuram Rajan of using the word ‘jumla' to deal with PM Narendra Modi ji government's achievements.”

Replying to Mr Ramesh's post on 'X', the Union minister said Mr Chidambaram used ‘jumla' in a bid to discredit Jan Dhan Yojna (JDY) and Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) programmes in 2016.

“Today JDY and DBT are shining examples of empowering poor and financial inclusion with 50 crore accounts and 2 lakh crore deposits,” he added.

“Raghuram Rajan, who destroyed the financial sector in UPA, tried to trash PM Narendra Modi ji's economic policies during Covid and then trash the electronics manufacturing," the minister alleged and noted that India is now the fastest growing economy and 2nd largest manufacturer of smartphones with over 1 lakh crore exports.

He alleged that Mr Ramesh created "uncertainties" about the Indian-made vaccines even as “his boss” pushed for imported vaccines like Pfizer who were imposing conditions on India.

The minister said that "200 crore made in India vaccines were delivered to Indians in a globally unrivalled success in fighting the pandemic.

Now this “re-branding manager” of Rahul Gandhi and the UPA uses “jumla” to describe almost six lakh new government jobs and lakhs of jobs in the private sector, start-ups and entrepreneurship for young Indians in the last 12 months "in the world's fastest-growing economy", Mr Chandrasekhar said lashing out at Mr Ramesh for his remarks.

In 2014, the Congress-led UPA government had left a workforce of 42 crore where 3 out of every 4 Indians in it were without education or any skills and 1.5 crore joining every year without skills "after 65 years of dynasty rule”, the BJP leader said.

"The spin master forgets to mention that," he added.

Prime Minister Modi has “worked hard” to get Indians skilled and re-skilled in the last nine years to ensure they are able to pursue “the many job opportunities being created in our fast-growing economy,” Mr Chandrasekhar said, adding, “Results are very visible.”

“Spinmaster is perhaps a forgetful person or is selective about his facts, perhaps why he is a spinmaster because he can't hide that Congress state governments lead in unemployment and price rise,” the Union minister said.

“Rahul, Congress and its desperate, doomed to fail re-branding efforts of UPA,” he added.

Addressing a Rozgar Mela earlier this morning, PM Modi distributed over 51,000 appointment letters to the youth, mostly in the security forces.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)