Jaipur, Jan. 14 -- Under the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led government, Rajasthan's unemployment rate has dropped significantly as compared with the previous Congress regime, BJP leader Rajendra Rathore claimed on Tuesday. Addressing a press conference in Jaipur, he said, "The unemployment rate was about 26% during the former CM Ashok Gehlot-led Congress government. But the corresponding figure is now only about 7.4% in 2025 under the CM Bhajan Lal Sharma-led BJP government. There was a significant decline - a significant instance of our good governance." Referring to the latest recruitment calendar issued on Monday notifying over 100,000 jobs this year, he said, "This calendar will ensure a time-bound and transparent hiring process. The eligible candidates will get their fair opportunities. In our manifesto, we promised to give four lakh (400,000) government and six lakh (600,000) private jobs. In the last two years, we have already hired 92,000 people while another batch of 1.53 lakh (153,000) jobs is also in the pipeline." Taking a dig at the previous Congress government, Rathore said the Gehlot administration gave only 275,000 jobs in its five years, of which around 82,000 were contractual."More than 31,000 hiring are also sub judice currently. Meanwhile, our BJP government has successfully conducted at least 296 recruitment exams in two years without any paper leak or any other forgery." Rathore maintained that the BJP government had made "history" by erasing what he called the "curse" of unemployment, paper leaks and internet shutdowns during exams, which he said had become a norm under Congress rule. He added: "The per capita income in Rajasthan has also increased to Rs.2.37 lakh in 2025-26 from the previous Rs.1.66 lakh in 2023-24. Our CM has a clear goal to make the state a Rs.350 billion economy by 2030." Congress spokesperson Swarnim Chaturvedi said, "Unemployment rate has dropped on paper because the government has stopped the proper registration process of job seekers. They are also not giving jobs under the urban employment guarantee schemes. Most of the jobs are still in pipeline with no idea when they will be disbursed. They could not even meet the first year target of providing 100,000 jobs. In reality, the situation was much better during our time."...