Kolkata: Calling Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s guarantee for the people a fraudulent one, Trinamool Congress (TMC) on Sunday questioned why 83 per cent of youths in India continue to be unemployed.
Addressing a Press conference, former Finance minister of Bengal and TMC leader Amit Mitra said “Modi’s guarantee is a 420 guarantee”. He said “Around 83 per cent of the jobless people in the country are young men and women. Two-thirds of the educated youth are “unemployed”.
Claiming that the Skill India programme of the NDA government for preparing skilled manpower has not borne the desired results, he alleged that only around 4 per cent of the country’s youth are getting vocational training.
Mitra further claimed that household net financial savings is the lowest in the last 50 years. He said that among the high networth individuals, 35,000 have given up on Indian citizenship. “There are no answers to these from PM Modi,” he remarked.
He claimed that 30 farmers commit suicide in this country every day and yet the BJP led government at the Centre has still not approved of a guaranteed minimum support price (MSP) for them.
Mitra said that banks under the Central government have written off debts of Rs 16 lakh crore but for small businesses it is only Rs 160 crore. “Who are those who benefitted from the write-offs of Rs 16 lakh crore? They are certainly not small business players,” he questioned.
He claimed India’s external debt has increased 100 per cent in 10 years. He claimed: “In 2013-14, it was 365000 crore. This became 748000 crore in 2022-23”.
He also alleged that hate speeches have gone up in India by 45 per cent. A direct result of this is an increase in communal slurs inside Parliament, he alleged.
He also pointed out that ever since BJP’s debacle in 2021 state elections, the Centre did not pay a penny to the state for schemes such as MGNREGA and Awas Yojana. “The Prime Minister does not even answer a single question in Parliament,” he alleged.
Mitra questioned why the BJP claims to want to stop Lakshmir Bhandar in Bengal which has benefitted 2.15 crore women in Bengal.
Answering questions on TMC’s stand with the INDIA bloc, he said: “As far as Trinamool Congress is concerned, we were with the INDIA alliance as one of the founders, we are there and we will be in it, this is Mamata Banerjee’s position.”