Staff Reporter
SHILLONG:
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on February 23 attacked the Trinamool Congress (TMC) for promising to bring in three lakhs jobs and giving youth allowance to the young voters of Meghalaya.
BJP spokesperson and North Shillong candidate Mariahom Kharkrang said this after a court on Wednesday rejected the bail petition of the wife and son of TMC legislator Manik Bhattacharya and former president of the West Bengal Board of Primary Education.
Both of his family members have now been sent to judicial custody.
Bhattacharya is in custody in connection with irregularities in recruitment for government-aided primary schools Staff Selection Commission.
The legislator is in legal hot waters for his involvement in the illegal recruitment of teachers and other non-teaching employees in Bengal’s schools.
“This can be best called TMC’s flagship model of employment. Do we want this model in Meghalaya?” Kharkrang said.
He further accused poverty-alleviation schemes such as the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) of being a source of corruption in West Bengal, where the Block Development Officers (BDOs) are allegedly directed to collect the “cut money” in return for the issuance of job cards.
According to Kharkrang, candidate supervisors for the MGNREGA scheme are appointed by the local TMC elected representatives through BDO offices who are tasked with the collection of the cut money.
“Beneficiaries who are unable to pay such cuts face blockage of their job cards. This is the corrupt culture that TMC wants to bring to the state like Meghalaya,” he said.
Kharkrang also added that coal mining, a source of employment in Meghalaya, was banned under the leadership of Congress legislators who are now part of TMC. He blamed the erstwhile Congress leaders of decline in employment, and critiqued the Meghalaya Youth Employment (MYE) card as ineffective.
Kharkrang then continued his barrage of attacks by lashing out at the National People’s Party (NPP), accusing them of nepotism and “lack of transparency” in job recruitment, causing a brain-drain of educated Meghalayans and leaving job positions vacant.
The BJP promises to establish an empowered Meghalaya Combined Recruitment Commission with no interviews for Grade III and IV posts to expedite the filling of vacancies and eliminate corruption across various government departments.
“We will create 3.5 lakh employment opportunities over the next 5 years by setting up two new special economic zones, and one additional IT park,” he said.
The party also promises to invest Rs 1000 crores in the development of tourism across the state in order to create a projected 1 lakh jobs as well as launch Karnesh Marak Youth Support Scheme, which will provide unemployed graduates with Rs 1,000 per month for a year to support higher education or government job preparation.