In what the Chhattisgarh unit of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) calls its “biggest ever” street protest, its youth wing, the Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha (BJYM), will gherao Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel’s residence on the issue of unemployment on Wednesday.
The party claims that one lakh youth from across the State will congregate in the State capital, Raipur, to protest against unemployment in the State on Wednesday.
While the State BJYM is leading the “ Chalbo Raipur mangbo rozgaar (let’s march to Raipur demanding jobs)“, its national president, Tejasvi Surya, will also be in Raipur, with the party’s top brass in Chhattisgarh actively participating.
The party is raising the issue of unemployment at a time when Mr. Baghel’s government has been citing data on reduced unemployment in Chhattisgarh as one of the success stories of his tenure so far.
Anurag Singh Deo, BJYM in-charge and Chhattisgarh spokesperson for the BJP, dismisses these claims.
“The Chief Minister has put hoardings in the city that five lakh jobs have been generated in three-and-a-half years but when we asked in the Assembly during the recent monsoon session, the government said only 20,000 jobs had been given. The Congress has said that it will provide an allowance of ₹2,500 per month to 10 lakh youths but hasn’t kept that promise either. This is why we are hitting the streets,” Mr. Singh Deo said.
He dismissed the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE) data, cited by the Chhattisgarh Government to claim the unemployment rate in the State was 0.8% compared with the national average of 6.9%, as an eyewash. The BJP pegs the unemployment figures at 10 lakh in a State with a population of just under 3 crore.
Cadre mobilisation
Beyond protesting the issue of unemployment, which the party believes will help it connect with a large voter base comprising youths, the protest is also a self-assessment exercise, some leaders say.
“Even if the number is half of what we estimate, it will be the biggest ever in terms of head count since we were given the mandate to sit in the opposition in 2018. More importantly, this is the first major event after the new State unit president (Arun Sao) and Leader of the Opposition in the Assembly (Narayan Chandel) were appointed. A success or failure will give us a clear picture of where we stand as far as cadre mobilisation is concerned,” a party source said.
An office-bearer of the BJYM added that the workers had been dormant for the most part of Mr. Baghel’s tenure due to a lack of aggression from the leadership and several other reasons. “A senior leader (Dharam Lal Kaushik, former State president and recently replaced Leader of the Opposition), had blamed the cadre for the party’s loss in 2018, which dampened the morale of many party workers. Now, with the baggage of the past gone, there is a newfound enthusiasm among the average karyakarta to regroup, but the road ahead will also depend on how we are treated under this new regime,” the BYJM office-bearer said.
