Congress says 'Youth celebrating PM's b'day as 'National Unemployment Day', asks 'where are the jobs'?

New Delhi: The Congress on Saturday claimed that in view of the "worrying" job situation in the country, the youth are marking Prime Minister Narendra Modi's birthday as "National Unemployment Day", and demanded that he employ them as promised. The opposition party also greeted Prime Minister Modi on his 72nd birthday and wished him good health and long life. Addressing a press conference at the AICC headquarters here, Congress spokesperson Supriya Shrinate said the birthdays of Indian prime ministers have always been celebrated as special days.

"Given his love for children, Nehru Ji's birthday is marked as Children's Day, Indira Ji's birthday is celebrated as Communal Harmony Day and Rajiv Gandhi Ji's birthday is celebrated as 'Sadbhavna Diwas'. "Even, Atal Ji's birthday in December is celebrated as Good Governance Day, which is why it worries and pains me that Mr. Modi's birthday is being celebrated by the youth of this country as National Unemployment Day," Shrinate said.

She said it is a huge cause of concern that despite India being the youngest country in the world, 60 per cent of the country's working-age population is either unemployed or not looking for work.

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"In fact, in the 20-24 age group, 42 per cent of the youth are unemployed. If this is not a worrying situation, I wonder what is. And the prime minister can neither hide behind Covid, nor the Russia-Ukraine war because unemployment peaked at a 45-year high even before the first case of Covid was reported. "The latest unemployment rate of 8.3 per cent is a hugely worrying thing for our economy and population," the Congress leader said.

Modi promised about two crore annual jobs but instead only seven lakh people have been given employment in the last eight years, she claimed, adding that 22 crore people had applied for jobs. "Each time you mention unemployment and price rise, they want to talk about unnecessary, irrelevant, distracting issues and they promote disinformation," the Congress leader alleged.