BJP, BJD stage demonstrations over unemployment in Odisha

The ruling BJD and opposition BJP staged separate demonstrations across Odisha on Monday, holding each other responsible for unemployment in the state and betraying the jobless youths.

While the youth and student wings of the BJD launched a three-day protest in front of central government offices, the BJP Yuva Morcha activists demonstrated at the employment exchanges in the state.

BJD general secretary Sanjay Dasburma said similar demonstrations would also be held outside central government offices on Tuesday and Wednesday.

"Though the BJP had promised to create two crore jobs every year in its election manifesto, employment opportunities were lost due to demonetisation and faulty economic policies of the NDA government," he said.

BJD leaders also accused the BJP-led government of having failed to come up with an industrial corridor in Odisha since 2014.

The BJP, on the other hand, alleged that the BJD government had no positive agenda for development of the state.

BJP Yuva Morcha state unit president, Tankadhar Tripathy, said the unemployment problem has assumed a serious shape during the last 19 years of BJD rule in Odisha.

Instead of providing employment to the youths, the state government has "swindled huge money in the name of organising job fairs", he claimed.

A large number of youths are migrating to other states in search of jobs in the absence of employment opportunities in Odisha, he said.

Amidst the war of words between the two parties, the Congress claimed that both the BJD and the BJP are "pretending" to be worried over the plight of the jobless since elections are due next year.

Stating that the common people are aware of the truth, Odisha Pradesh Congress Committee (OPCC) president Niranjan Patnaik said neither the BJP nor the BJD is sincere about providing jobs.