'Excellent question': Rahul pokes Gadkari over 'where are the jobs' comment

Congress President Rahul Gandhi on Monday took a potshot at the Narendra Modi-led government over the unemployment issue after one of his cabinet ministers conceded that there is a job crunch.

"Excellent question (Nitin) Gadkariji. Every Indian is asking the same question. Where are the jobs," Gandhi tweeted attaching a news report in which the Union Road Transport and Shipping Minister questioned the rationality behind a job reservation stir when there were not enough jobs in the first place.

Gandhi's remarks came a day after Gadkari on Sunday told reporters in Maharashtra that reservation would not guarantee employment as jobs were shrinking.

"Let us assume the reservation is given. But there are no jobs. Because in banks, the jobs have shrunk because of IT. The government recruitment is frozen. Where are the jobs?" Gadkari asked.

He also said that the problem with the quota is that "backwardness is becoming a political interest".

Gadkari said that one school of thought is that "a poor is poor, he has no caste, creed or language. Whatever may be the religion..., in all communities there is one section which has no clothes to wear, no food to eat".

Whereas the other school of thought is "we must also consider the poorest of the poor section in every community".

This is a "socio-economic thinking" and it must not be politicised, he added.

In a tweet late on Sunday, Gadkari also clarified that the government is not planning to change the criteria for reservation from "castes to economic conditions".