Highlights
- Rahul Gandhi launched sharp attack on the Narendra Modi government
- The young people, he said, are keen to compete with China
- He said centre is very far in comparison to China in providing jobs
Congress chief Rahul Gandhi launched a sharp attack on the Narendra Modi government this evening in Maharashtra's Goregaon, where he had gone to address the party's poll booth workers. Not only has the BJP government failed to honour it promises on job creation, it is very far from comparing to China, which provides employment for 50,000 people a day, he told the workers.
"Modi said the Pradhan Mantri Rozgar Yojana will provide employment to 2 crore people per year but their leader in Lok Sabha said unemployment is at its highest in 8 years," he said, adding, "In 24 hours, China gives jobs to 50,000 youth and the BJP gives jobs to 450".
The young people, he said, are keen to compete with China. "The PM is saying 'fight among yourselves, there is no need to work. I am the PM -- India would be run on basis of my speeches'. But in the end, jobs would have to be created, farmers would have to be protected, there is no other alternative," Mr Gandhi said.
The Congress chief, who was in Mumbai to attend the hearing of a defamation case in which he was named, said the people are living in fear.
"I have asked Mumbai residents on what differentiates Mumbai from other cities... All of them say that work is recognized and respected in city... The Congress takes everyone along just the way Mumbai does. When the Congress was in power, you could speak about us openly, fearlessly," added the Congress chief, who has been sued over his comments at a rally before the 2014 election blaming the RSS for Mahatma Gandhi's assassination in 1948.
After the hearing, he proceeded to Goregaon - roughly 100 km from the Maharashtra state capital -- for the meeting with the 15,000-odd booth-level party workers, a key move ahead of next year's general elections.
The meeting was part of the project 'Shakti'. A brainchild of the Congress chief, the project aims to empower the ground-level workers and facilitate two-way communication between them and the central leadership.