New Delhi: In his maiden speech in the Rajya Sabha, BJP president Amit Shah said it was better to sell ‘pakodas’ than to be unemployed. Using his speech in Parliament to hit back at Opposition criticism of Prime Minister Narendra Modi for his statement about employment.
“Selling pakodas is not something to be ashamed of. Someone who sells pakodas today, his progeny can become entrepreneurs tomorrow. Today a son of chaiwala is the PM of this nation. You cannot compare the self-employed with beggars,” Shah said in his first speech in the Rajya Sabha.
Shah was responding to the Congress’s recent jibes at PM Modi, after the latter, in a TV interview, said that “if a person sells ‘pakodas’ and takes home Rs 200 every evening, will it be considered employment or not?”
The Congress slammed the government’s “wild” claims of job creation, going so far as to say that if selling ‘pakodas’ was a job, then begging should also be recognised as employment.
Former finance minister and Congress leader P Chidambaram tore into the Centre, saying that “real job creation” was “not happening yet.”
Shah attacked the Congress over unemployment, wondering that since the issue had persisted after “55 years of your rule, who’s fault is it?”.”This problem didn’t suddenly emerge,” he charged.
He further said that the previous UPA governments suffered from policy paralysis.