Oppn's new ammo is giving govt nightmares

New Delhi: The Congress has lapped up a ‘leaked’ media report on National Sample Survey Office (NSSO) data showing significant increase in unemployment and launched a frontal attack on the Modi government. Leaders of many opposition parties demanded at Thursday’s all party meeting that the matter be discussed in both Houses of Parliament. The main opposition party, which is working to make agrarian crisis and joblessness its twin electoral planks for the Lok Sabha elections, has used the data on unemployment to pick holes on the government’s administration, with Rahul Gandhi even using the epithet “Fuhrer” to attack PM Modi.At the all-party meeting, leader of the opposition in the Rajya Sabha, Ghulam Nabi Azad, and representatives of parties such as Trinamool, CPM and CPI joined hands in raising the data issue. They demanded that the issued be discussed in the budget session. There was no response from the government side to their demand, sources said.A party leader said after a toplevel meeting that there will be a major protest on the floor of the Lok Sabha, perhaps even a walkout, if the finance minister’s budget proposals on Friday “go beyond the traditional Lakshman rekha for an interim budget”.Senior Congress leader Anand Sharma said at the AICC presser: “While overall unemployment rate has grown to a 45-year high, the unemployment rate among rural males has increased from 5% to 17.4% after demonetisation, and from 4.8% to 13.6% among rural females. Among the urban males, the unemployment rate increased from 8.1% to 18.7% and among urban females, it increased from 13.1% to 27.2%. The unemployment among the youth in cities rose 7.8%, the highest in history.”Sharma questioned why the Presidential address skipped the employment aspect. “If the promises were really fulfilled, the President’s address would have data on employment.”

from Economic Times http://bit.ly/2HITXz1