Hot potato job drive dropped by Bengal BJP
KOLKATA: The BJP’s West Bengal unit has decided to scrap the ‘job assurance’ drive launched by the party’s youth wing after senior leaders picked holes in the plan. The decision came after veterans said such promises could hand the Trinamool Congress (TMC) the whip to lash it with for making ‘false promises’.
The BJP youth wing had planned to target 75 lakh unemployed youth and hand them ‘assurance’ cards.
The Bengal BJP had announced the drive on December 13, promising ‘job assurance cards’ to unemployed youth spread across 294 Assembly segments. The party’s plan was to prepare a database of 75 lakh jobless youth with their academic and extracurricular background.
Those with the cards were promised jobs, based on their academic qualifications, over the next five years, if the party came to power in 2021. A senior BJP leader said there was a problem with the term ‘jobs’. “Many people thought they would get jobs with the card issued by our party. We only wanted to conduct a survey to gauge the level of unemployment.
After the survey, we had a plan to design a roadmap for employment generation. Based on the word ‘job’ mentioned in the card, the aspirants started thinking that the BJP-led state government would give them government jobs, which is not the case. There could be private jobs or business suggestions from us,’’ he said. However, another senior BJP leader said that offering jobs based on the database was impossible. “Already there is employment exchange to provide jobs to the unemployed.
We found that our initiative could be used by the Trinamool Congress against us in the run-up to the Assembly election,” the leader said. The BJP has made the unemployment issue in the state its poll plank and never misses an opportunity to target Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on this.
While launching the programme, BJP’s national vice president Mukul Roy had said, “No investment has come to the state for setting up industries despite the chief minister organizing several global investment summits. Besides, those who have business units in the states are moving out because of the syndicate raj.”