Taking a u-turn on the unemployment allowance promised by the Congress in its election manifesto for the state assembly elections in Madhya Pradesh, CM Kamal Nath has pointed that the state government has no plans to do the same. While replying to a query by Congress MLA, Munnalal Goyal in the state assembly, if the government is formulating any policy regarding the unemployment allowance, CM Kamal Nath in a written reply has claimed that the government is not working on any such policy.
Last year in the run-up to the assembly elections, Congress in their manifesto had promised that the youth will be given Rs 4000 as unemployment allowance if the party came to power, however even after more than 6 months after the grand old party came to power in the state, no progress has been seen in this regard. Earlier leader of opposition in Madhya Pradesh Assembly, Gopal Bhargava had called out Kamal Nath government for the unfulfillment of the electoral promise and claimed that the government has betrayed the electorate. He also claimed that Congress had made several promises, however no intent to fulfill those promises was seen in the state budget.
Earlier government had announced the ‘Yuva Swahbiman Scheme’ under which unemployed youth were to be given training and employment for 100 days in a year, the youth were also poised to get a total allowance of Rs. 13000 for this period which approximately translated to Rs. 4000 a month, the cabinet had also cleared the proposal, however now with this reply in the state assembly, the Kamal Nath government has evidently taken a u-turn.
Kamal Nath government is already under fire for the inefficient governance which has gripped the state over the past few months. Of all the major and minor issues, frequent and unscheduled power outages are surely topping the list among citizens. With rising summer temperatures both urban and rural population in the state have been struggling in the face of power outages which are sometimes as long as for 10 hours and now this u-turn on another important electoral promise is sure to hurt the popularity of the state government which is already running on a hair-thin majority.
During the state assembly elections in 2018, Congress had also promised farm loan waiver of up to 2 lakhs. The then Congress president Rahul Gandhi had claimed that within 10 days, the promises would be fulfilled without any delay. However, while addressing the media on Tuesday, Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister, Kamal Nath finally conceded that waiving off loans of farmers within 10 days was not possible.
While fulfilling of election promises should ideally be one of the top agendas in the state, however, like on many other fronts Congress has decided to take u-turns or just shift the blame to the BJP and allege conspiracies. Just a few months in charge and several inefficiencies seemed to have already clouded the state. Decreasing patience of the voters over non-delivery of promises made by the Congress also led to difficult situations for Congress in Lok Sabha elections where the grand old party just managed to win on a single Parliamentary Constituency out of the total 29 in the state. Many believe that Congress neither has the will nor the capacity to deliver on promises and the promises made by the party were nothing more than electoral stunts. This blatant disregard of the people’s trust coupled with many problems of law and order, power outages and others are sure to add links to the long chain of challenges the Kamal Nath government is already facing in the state.