Bahujan Samaj Party chief Mayawati lashed out at the Uttar Pradesh and Bihar governments, holding them responsible for prevailing poverty and unemployment in respective states.
Attacking the Bharatiya Janata Party over protests by railway job aspirants in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, Mayawati asked the saffron party to change its “narrow mindset of making the youth sell pakoras”.
The BSP chief took to Twitter to target the BJP over issues of unemployment and poverty.
“There has been a huge uproar in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar over UPTNT and now over Railways' RRB-NTPC results, which is a proof of the failure of the governments. Beating up poor and unemployed youths for protesting, and playing with their future is totally unjustified,” Mayawati tweeted in Hindi on Thursday.
The BSP chief further added, “Due to the wrong policies of the government, poverty and unemployment have reached their nadir. Government jobs and reservation facilities in them have become secondary. In such a situation, it is unjust to not have the examination even for small government jobs for years. The BJP should change its narrow mindset of making the youth sell ‘pakoras' (snacks).”
Mayawati's remark was a dig at Prime Minister Narendra Modi's comments made during a 2018 interview to a TV news channel where he said that selling pakoras was also a form of employment and could be seen as a form of “job creation”.
Meanwhile, thousands of job aspirants, unemployed youths and students are currently protesting against Railway Recruitment Board (RRB) and non-technical popular categories (NTPC) exams following the change in the examination pattern of NTPC examinations. On Wednesday, a passenger train was set on fire and another pelted with stones during protests against the ‘irregularities’ in RRB-NTPC Exam 2021 in Bihar. Later, Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw urged job aspirants not to destroy public property. The Railway ministry also decided to suspend NTPC and Level 1 exams in the wake of protests across the country. Hundreds of protestors had squatted on rail tracks at several places on Tuesday, hampering train movement across Bihar. Several trains had to be cancelled or run on alternative routes in view of the protests.
