Cong targets PM on issue of growth in U’khand

New Delhi: The Congress on Tuesday said the Modi government has “failed” to make any meaningful improvements in Uttarakhand, claiming the state has been plagued by rampant unemployment, unprecedented out-migration, crumbling infrastructure, and a deteriorating law and order situation in recent years.

The opposition party’s attack came ahead of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s rally in Uttarakhand.

Congress general secretary Jairam Ramesh noted that PM Modi is visiting the city of Rudrapur in Uttarakhand on Tuesday. “We hope that the PM will take this opportunity to address three key questions about why his government has failed to make any meaningful improvements in the state,” Ramesh said and listed the questions on X. “The BJP government has been disappointingly ineffective in addressing Uttarakhand’s biggest challenges of unemployment and migration.

In 2021, an RTI revealed that 5 lakh people have migrated out of the state in the last 10 years - and the rate of migration is only increasing,” Ramesh said. The National Statistical Office (NSO) data from 2020 shows alarmingly high rates of unemployment, with nearly one third of Uttarakhand’s urban youth being unemployed, he said.

“Where it should be working to address these challenges, the BJP has been callous and counterproductive, with a BJP leader arrested in 2022 in the UKSSSC paper leak scam, which frustrated the hopes and ambitions of 1.6 lakh aspirants,” he alleged.

When young protestors took to the streets in Dehradun to demand a CBI probe into paper leaks, they were latchi-charged by the BJP government, he claimed. “The introduction of the Agnipath scheme has similarly deprived young Uttarakhandis of another possibility for employment.

Given this state of affairs, Uttarakhand has experienced a growing number of ‘ghost villages’ which have been abandoned by disgruntled citizens who have given up on their prospects in the state,” Ramesh claimed.

What is PM Modi’s government doing to stem this mass exodus from the state, to solve the pressing unemployment crisis, or at the least to end this constant stream of paper leaks, he asked. Ramesh further said it has been more than 18 months since receptionist Ankita Bhandari was assaulted and brutally murdered at the Vanantara Resort in Rishikesh.