Yogendra Yadav kicks off poll campaign from Gurugram, to focus on unemployment, poor infrastructure

Swaraj India’s campaign is being pitched as a counter to chief minister Manohar Lal Khattar’s statewide Jan Ashirvad Yatra, which is currently underway.

Swaraj India, on Sunday, kicked off its nine-day-long Jan Sarokar Abhiyan Yatra from Gurugram in the presence of party president Yogendra Yadav and other leaders contesting the state assembly polls scheduled for October this year.

Swaraj India, on Sunday, kicked off its nine-day-long Jan Sarokar Abhiyan Yatra from Gurugram in the presence of party president Yogendra Yadav (Yogendra Kumar/HT Photo)

The campaign is being pitched as a counter to chief minister Manohar Lal Khattar’s statewide Jan Ashirvad Yatra, which is currently underway. Sharing the intention behind the campaign, Yadav said, “The government has failed on all counts and the namesake opposition parties are not ready to point out the failures of the government.”

In the absence of the opposition parties, Yadav said, a political vacuum has been created in which propaganda politics is gaining strength.

With the slogan of “nikammi sarkar, vipaksh bekaar (failed government, useless opposition)”, Jan Sarokar Abhiyan Yatra would travel across 23 places in the state and culminate in Karnal on September 9.

According to Yadav, unemployment, poor civic infrastructure and increased liquor consumption in the state would be the major poll issues that Swaraj India would highlight through the yatra. Citing a recent report on unemployment released by the Centre for Monitoring of Indian Economy, he said that Haryana was among the states with the highest unemployment rates in the country. “Only a fraction of people have jobs, and those who have jobs fall in the Group D category,” added Yadav.

Calling Yadav’s claims incorrect, Jawahar Yadav, BJP spokesperson, said, “The information shared by him is not correct. We have created more jobs than what the former Hooda government did in its ten-year tenure. Thousands of jobs have been created through the Saksham Yojana, while 10,000 people have got jobs as JBT (junior basic training) teachers.”

Yogendra Yadav, meanwhile, said that the unemployment report was publically available and can be checked by all. He said that the party would highlight one issue concerning the people every day during the Yatra and seek answers from the government.

Sharing the party’s plans for the election, he said that the party was aiming to have women and youth contest on the seats. Sheilza Bhatia, party’s Gurugram candidate, said that women’s safety and pollution would be her priority areas.