Capt Amarinder releases data of over 12 lakh jobs generated since April 2017

Punjab Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh on Friday came out with data to prove his claim on employment generation in the state and said the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) should apologise for misleading the people with their brazen, baseless and unfounded lies.

Captain Amarinder said Sukhbir Badal and his bunch of ignorant party colleagues had absolutely no clue what was happening in Punjab adding that in their perpetual haste to react to every word uttered by him (chief minister), they had become habitual of putting their foot in their mouth at the drop of the hat, without checking the veracity of their comments.

"The figure for jobs generated since April 1, 2017, was even higher than the 11 lakh he had 'mouthed'" said the Chief Minister.

As per the official data available to him, the number of government jobs generated from April 1, 2017, to December 31, 2019, was 57,905, with 3,96,775 under the private placement and another 7,61,289 facilitated by his government in the self-employment category, he added.

"And for the convenience of Sukhbir and company, let me tell them that these figures total up to 12,15,969, which was considerably higher than 11 lakhs he had earlier mentioned, off the cuff, during the Delhi campaign," said the Chief Minister.

"This was in addition to the 20,21,568 households given employment under the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) scheme," he added.

Challenging the Akalis to release the figures for employment in the 10 years of their misrule, the Chief Minister said his government had already done more in three years than they had delivered in a decade, on every important parameter.

"Instead of showing any signs of regret for failing the citizens of Punjab on every count during their regime, and instead of leveraging their presence in the Central Government for the past nearly six years for the benefit of the state, the SAD continued to indulge in pathetic theatrics," said Captain Amarinder.

Pointing out that Sukhbir and his party colleagues had, and again, proved that they were totally ignorant of the ground realities in Punjab, and had no connection with the aspirations of the people, the Chief Minister said, "This ignorance had cost them heavy in the last Assembly polls and would continue to spell their doom in the coming years. SAD's pathetic attempts to mislead the people of Punjab with their shameless lies would not succeed; in fact, they would only plunge the Akalis further into the abyss of political oblivion."

"Neither the false claims of the Akalis nor the unsubstantiated allegations of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) can sway the people, who are intelligent enough to know where their welfare lies," he said.