Things keep going downhill for the Uddhav Thackeray led Shiv Sena as it has been reported that a Shiv Sena worker organised a fake job fair for which thousands of unemployed youth turned up only to return disappointed after discovering that there wouldn’t be any such job fair. The incident took place on Saturday when thousands of unemployed youngsters gathered in Mulund (West) to attend a job fair purportedly organised by Shiv Sena worker Sanjay Mali. On being told that there wouldn’t be any such job fair, they got angry and frustrated and went on to sign a handwritten complaint which was later submitted to the police.
The candidates carrying their original documents and change of clothes, some of them in flip-flops waited hopefully for hours for the job fair to open at the Mulund High School. However, to their utter disappointment, the hoarding at the school which advertised the job fair was changed at the last minute.
A new announcement about a guidance meeting for government job vacancies was made. The complaint stated, “When we tried to question the organiser, Shiv Sainik Sanjay Mali, he and the local police tried to threaten us. They put pressure on us when we tried to hold a protest.” The youths who were hopeful of getting a job at the fair were obviously dismayed by the unexpected turn of events, and many youths even took to social media questioning the intention of Shiv Sena and also asking ‘Matoshree‘ to take note of such activities.
Shiv Sena meanwhile seems to be unfazed even in the face of the embarrassing incident. Rajesh Korgaonkar, MLA from Bhandup (West) and leader of the Shiv Sena’s Mulund branch came out in support of Mali and said that he was aware of the incident and the complaints of people.
He also said that Mali is a Shiv Sainik and he had also organised two such guidance meetings for government job recruitment in the past. He also claimed that Mali does a lot of social work. As per him, Mali’s intentions were not bad, but the content on the board was “slightly misleading”. Only the Shiv Sena can explain how mobilising youth for a guidance programme in the name of a job fair can be “slightly misleading”. On the face of it, the job fair seems to be as “slightly misleading” as Shiv Sena’s pre-poll campaign as an alliance partner of the BJP. Even at that time, Shiv Sena had left the hopeful people of Maharashtra dejected by joining hands with its ideological rivals.
While the Shiv Sena has dismissed the incident as an unintended error, the fact remains that the hopeful youths, who had attended what was seemingly a job fair, feel cheated and misled. They felt that as if their emotions have been played with. To be misled in this way would obviously seem like a cruel joke to a job aspirant. The Shiv Sena might not be paying much heed to this incident, but this can potentially hurt it in a bad way given the manner in which thousands of job aspirants have been left disappointed.