NEW DELHI: Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge on Saturday accused the Centre of taking away the right of reservation of the teachers in central universities and alleged that the Modi govt’s slogan ‘Sabka Sath, Sabka Vikas‘ “mocks the fight for social justice by snubbing it!”
“Those who are taking away the right of reservation of the teachers in central universities are teaching others a lesson in public welfare,” Kharge said, in an apparent reference to Modi over his jibe at Congress on poll promises.
On Friday, the Congress president had reacted sharply to Modi’s remarks that the party stood “badly exposed” because of its inability to implement poll promises.
Kharge, however, steered clear of saying anything about his own comment urging caution while making poll promises, which had triggered the war of words. Kharge said an RTI query has found that of the 18,940 sanctioned posts in 46 central universities, 27% teaching posts are vacant. “Among those, more than 38% seats reserved for the Scheduled Castes (SCs), Scheduled Tribes (STs) and Other Backward Classes (OBC) are lying vacant.”
The party fielded senior functionaries to counter the PM’s allegationsregarding delivery on poll promises in Congress-governed states. On Friday, Karnataka CM Siddaramaiah and Himachal Pradesh CM Sukhvinder Singh Sukku put out detailed statements.
A day later, Telangana CM A Revanth Reddy referred to “several misconceptions and factual errors” in the PM’s statement. Reddy said, “In less than 11 months, the Congress govt has provided jobs for over 50,000 eligible youth, a record unmatched by any BJP state govt.”Karnataka deputy CM D K Shivakumar said that “as per the data from the ministry of statistics and programme implementation Karnataka’s GSDP growth for 2023-24 is 10.2% surpassing the national average of 8.2%.”