BJP MPs block Murli Manohar Joshi-led report due to bleak picture on jobs, GDP

The Narendra Modi-led BJP government is hurtling from one crises to another. Worried that the labour ministry’s data on job creation would raise embarrassing questions, the government is attempting to stall the report, tabled by the Estimates Committee headed by veteran BJP leader Murli Manohar Joshi.

Two Committee members and BJP MPs Nishikant Dubey and Ramesh Bidhuri, said they would not allow the report to be adopted and wanted to give dissent notes.

According to a report in The Wire, Joshi told the BJP MPs that according to Parliamentary conventions, financial committees such as the estimates committee do not carry any notes of dissent as they are based on the data provided by the government itself. In this case, it was provided by the labour ministry and the government usually has no reason to doubt its own data.

However, in this case the government is worried that if the data comes out, it will put the Modi government in an embarrassing situation as during his campaigns in 2014, the PM had promised to create two crore jobs yearly.

According to the report, while the Joshi-led meeting was in session, BJP leader Vijay Goel, who is not a member of the committee, was allegedly seen outside. He was sent by BJP president Amit Shah to ensure that two of the BJP MPs objected to the report.

Eventually, Joshi told both the BJP MPs that he wanted both of them to give him written submissions on matter. However, Bidhuri refused to do so stating that he was busy with election duties too. Dubey, after initially refusing to do so, agreed to send submissions.

According to sources, top leaders in BJP have been vehemently opposing teh report as it could leave the party red-faced, as the labour and statistics secretaries have admitted that they have no “real-time data on job creation” .

India has been struggling with employment generation for a few years and there has been a crisis in the market ever since the Modi government had decided to implement demonetisation and the Goods and Services Tax (GST).

In spite of such depressing state, the Prime Minister had claimed that “jobs were being created but the data did not reflect them”. He had gone on to even say that ‘selling pakodas’ is a form of employment.