Hitler, Mussolini caught in BJP-Congress slugfest

German dictator Adolf Hitler and Italian Benito Mussolini on Thursday entered the India's political discourse amid a slugfest between the ruling BJP and the Congress over a National Sample Survey Office (NSSO) report that suggested the country's unemployment rate is highest in 45 years.

If Congress President Rahul Gandhi called Prime Minister Narendra Modi as "Fuhrer" while attacking him over unemployment, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) hit back saying the Gandhi scion "inherited Mussolini's short-sightedness".

Taking to Twitter, Gandhi said: "The Fuhrer promised us 2 crore jobs a year. 5 years later, his leaked job-creation report card reveals a national disaster. Unemployment is at its highest in 45 years; 6.5 crore youth are jobless in 2017-18 alone. Time for NoMo2Go (Modi to go)."

He also made fun of Modi's "How's the Josh" slogan with "How's the Jobs".

Replying to Gandhi's tweet, the BJP accused him of peddling fake news.

"It's clear that he has inherited Mussolini's short-sightedness and has myopic understanding of issues. EPFO's real data shows sharp increase in jobs, created in just the last 15 months. Only a man who hasn't ever held a proper job & is totally jobless can peddle such #FakeNews," the BJP tweeted.

The Congress lost no time to retaliate asking if the BJP was claiming its own government's report on jobs to be fake.

"Just to be clear BJP, are you saying your own govt agency's data on jobs is #FakeNews?" the Congress tweeted in reply.

"Also for the 2002nd time, EPFO (Employees' Provident Fund Organisation) data is not a reflection of new jobs created as stated by the organisation itself. #HowsTheJobs," it tweeted.

Citing data collated under the NSSO, a Business Standard report, allegedly withheld by the government, said that India's unemployment rate was at a 45-year-high at 6.1 per cent in 2017-18.

--IANS

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