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Kejriwal promises to speed up job creation in Gujarat
Kejriwal promised a law to curb the leaking of question papers of government recruitment examinations and punish the culprits
Delhi chief minister and Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) national convener Arvind Kejriwal on Tuesday reiterated his promise of creating 1 million job opportunities for youth and offering a stipend of ₹3,000 per month if voted to power in Gujarat, assembly polls for which are scheduled in December this year.
“I guarantee that every employed youth in Gujarat will be provided employment opportunities if we come to power. We plan to create employment for 10 lakh people in Gujarat. Till the time they seek employment, we will give them a stipend of ₹3,000 every month. We will ensure that 80% of the jobs in the private sector are given to residents of Gujarat. We will introduce a law to enforce it...After Delhi and Punjab, Gujarat is now asking for a change, a big change,” said Kejriwal, addressing a public meet in Gujarat’s Bhavnagar.
Kejriwal said his government has already created jobs for one million people in Delhi.
Delhi deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia said AAP has created 200,000 government jobs since coming to power in the national capital, and another one million jobs have been created in the private sector by way of a government initiative.
“This does not include the placements done by the private companies directly. Jobs are there, but when a government is active, they are not available for some reason,” Sisodia said in his speech at the Town Hall event.
Kejriwal also promised a law to curb the leaking of question papers of government recruitment examinations and punish the culprits. He read out a list of several cases in the last six to seven years where question papers of competitive exams, including many for government jobs, were leaked in Gujarat.
“Did anybody go to jail for leaking papers? They will now go to jail (when AAP forms a government). Madhya Pradesh had the ‘Vyapam scam. In Gujarat, a ‘Maha Vyapam scam’ is going on,” Kejriwal alleged while addressing a town hall meeting at Bhavnagar on the second day of his two-day visit to Gujarat.
The Vyapam scam was an entrance examination, admission and recruitment scam unearthed in Madhya Pradesh, also ruled by the BJP, in 2013. The scam is called Vyapam, the Hindi acronym of the Madhya Pradesh Professional Examination Board.
He said that in 2018, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led Gujarat government had cancelled the exam for recruitment for 2,800 posts at the Talati level, where lakhs of people had applied. The government invited fresh applications in 2022, but nothing has happened in this direction, he added.
Kejriwal said that the AAP government, if voted to power in Gujarat, would conduct the exam in February next year and declare the results in March, following which people will be recruited in April 2023.
Earlier in the day, Kejriwal tweeted that the BJP in Gujarat is very scared of AAP’s progress in the state. “According to sources, BJP is planning to replace the Gujarat BJP president C R Paatil. Is BJP indeed so scared of AAP?” he said.
Responding to the comment, media co-head for Gujarat BJP, Zubin Ashara, in a tweet said , “What sources is Kejriwal referring to? The same ones that said Modiji was losing the Varanasi seat in the 2014 general elections from where Kejriwal also contested. Or the ones that told Kejriwal that the Goa CM is being replaced due to fear of AAP. Are they the same sources that said AAP was getting a majority in Uttarakhand and that BJP was scared of them?”
