New Delhi, April 11 -- Rahul Gandhi on Friday accused the government of not even defining the Employment Linked Incentive scheme announced a year back by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and asked if it was just another jumla, as the BJP retorted that the Congress leader was weaponising ignorance.

Addressing Modi, Gandhi said on X that while he creates new slogans every day, the youth are still waiting for real opportunities.

He said, "What is your concrete plan to generate the crores of jobs India desperately needs, or is this just another jumla?"

Hitting back, BJP's Amit Malviya said either Gandhi's team has completely failed to brief him on the facts or, far more likely, he is "weaponising his trademark ignorance to gaslight India's youth".

The ruling party's IT department head said, "This isn't a gaffe; it's a calculated strategy to distort reality, using his platform to spread misinformation under the guise of cluelessness."

The Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha said that after the 2024 election, PM Modi announced the "Employment Linked Incentive" scheme with much fanfare, promising to provide employment to our youth. "It's been nearly a year since announcing the scheme, the government hasn't even defined it, and has returned the Rs 10,000 crores allotted to it. This shows how serious the PM is about unemployment," he alleged without elaborating the claim.

Malviya claimed that only 2.9 crore jobs were created during 2004-14 under the Congress-led UPA government, while the corresponding figure for the Modi government during 2014-24 was 17.19 crore.

He added, "In just the last year alone (2023-24), 4.6 crore jobs were created - more than the entire decade of Congress rule."

In his criticism of the government's employment policy, Gandhi said jobs can't be created by focusing only on large corporates, promoting cronies over fair-play businesses, prioritising assembly over production, and disregarding India's indigenous skills.

"The way to create crores of jobs is through large-scale investment in MSMEs, fair markets where competition can thrive, support for local production networks and youth equipped with the right skills," he said.

Published by HT Digital Content Services with permission from Millennium Post.