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Uttarakhand polls: Kejriwal vows unemployment aid, job quota for local residents
Kejriwal, who was on a day-long visit to Haldwani in Nainital, said his party will launch a scheme called Har Ghar Rozgar and provide 100,000 government jobs within six months of coming to power in Uttarakhand.
Delhi chief minister and Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) national convenor Arvind Kejriwal on Sunday promised jobs for all in Uttarakhand and a new ministry that will specifically look after this if his party forms the next government in the state. He also promised a monthly income support of ₹5,000 for the unemployed youth till they land jobs.
Kejriwal, who was on a day-long visit to Haldwani in Nainital, said his party will launch a scheme called Har Ghar Rozgar and provide 100,000 government jobs within six months of being elected to office. Of these, he said, 80% will be reserved for those domiciled in Uttarakhand.
“An online job portal will be launched on the lines of Delhi. It will contain data on both the jobs provided and those who get jobs. When such a portal was started in Delhi, more than 1 million people got employment”, Kejriwal said.
The Delhi CM also promised the creation of a ministry of employment and migration affairs in the state. “This separate department will make effective policies only for employment generation and checking of migration from the hill state,” he said.
Taking a dig at the frequent change of chief ministers in the Bharatiya Janata Party-ruled state in the last few months, the AAP national convenor said if people vote for the BJP, they will get a new CM every month. “If they vote for AAP, they will get a CM who will give employment for five years,” he said.
On the question of the feasibility of providing free power when the economic condition of Uttarakhand was weak, he said, “Government should have the will power. And we showed it by giving free electricity in New Delhi.”
Kejriwal also said that there were good people in many parties, including the BJP and the Congress, who were feeling suffocated there. “Such good people were welcome in AAP, ‘’ he said.
Later, Kejriwal took out a roadshow and also held a public meeting at Ramlila Maidan in Haldwani.
This is Kejriwal’s third visit to the hill state this year. With less than a year left for the next state assembly elections, AAP is aggressively stepping up its poll preparations. Over the last eight to nine months, it has been attacking the ruling BJP on various issues like alleged corruption, unemployment, and health infrastructure.
On his previous visit on August 17, Kejriwal announced Colonel Ajay Kothiyal’s (Retd) name as AAP’s chief ministerial candidate for the 2022 assembly polls and promised to make Uttarakhand the spiritual capital for the Hindus across the world if elected to power.
Before that, when he visited on July 11, Kejriwal promised 300 units of free electricity to every household if AAP was elected to power here. Talking about replicating AAP’s Delhi model of governance in Uttarakhand, he had said that the party will bring a major change in the schools and health infrastructure.
In July, the AAP state unit also launched ‘Kejriwal Muft Bijli Guarantee Card’ under which the party’s 10,000 workers will visit households in all the 70 assembly constituencies and urge residents to register for free electricity and give them the Kejriwal card as a token of guarantee for free power.
Commenting on AAP’s Tiranga Yatra across Uttarakhand, Union minister of state (MoS) for defence Ajay Bhatt told news agency ANI: “Parties are coming to Uttarakhand and speaking their minds but let me tell this that the people there have made up their minds. They will give an opportunity to the Bharatiya Janata Party to serve the people again in the 2022 elections and the party will win with a huge majority.”
Referring to the AAP’s promises of providing free water and electricity, Bhatt said the BJP is providing ration, Covid-19 vaccines, medicines and ventilators free of cost to the people of the state.
