New Delhi: The country’s unemployment rate hit a 45-year high of 6.1 per cent in 2017-18, the National Sample Survey Office’s (NSSO) periodic labour report, which has not been released but was leaked to a newspaper on the eve of the Narendra Modi government’s final, interim Budget, claimed, setting off a political slugfest.
On Thursday, soon after the damaging report on job creation under the Modi government appeared — the first survey since demonetisation was accounced in November 2016 — the government fielded Niti Aayog top officials to debunk it as a “draft not yet finalised” and to counter the Opposition’s attacks.
While the Congress called the Centre’s job creation record a “national disaster”, former Jammu and Kashmir chief minister Mehbooba Mufti picked up Mr Modi’s “vanakkam” remark in Pondicherry and tweeted, “Chaliye berozgari ko vanakkam. On a serious note, this is quite worrying.”
During the bitter duel on Twitter, Congress president Rahul Gandhi threw the “fuhrer” barb at Prime Minister Modi, while the BJP likened the Congress president to Mussolini, saying he has a myopic understanding of issues, just like the Italian dictator.
