NEWDELHI: The Congress has insulted “poor Indians”, the BJP has said, in response to former Finance Minister P Chidambaram’s jibe at Prime Minister Narendra Modi for saying a selling ‘pakodas’ should be considered employment.
“Prime Minister Modi respects poor people who work hard to earn their livelihood. Congress and P Chidambaram make fun of them,” said Union Minister Prakash Javadekar, returning the barb.
He further said the Congress only treated poor people as a “voting bloc”, and claimed that the BJP was focussed on generating employment for them.
Chidambaram’s comment on the matter had come as part a storm of about 12 tweets arguing that there is a difference between ’employment’ and ‘self-employment’. “Even selling pakodas is a ‘job’ said PM. By that logic, even begging is a job. Let’s count poor or disabled persons who are forced to beg for a living as ’employed’ people,” read the tweet in question.
Chidambaram’s jibe had come after PM Modi, in an interview with Media, said, “If someone is selling pakodas and making 200 rupees a day, does he not have a livelihood? Do you not consider that employment?”
Chidambaram’s tweet storm accompanied a column he had written for a newspaper, which was a takedown of a news report which carried the government’s claim of having created 70 lakh jobs in 2017-18 alone.
“In the debate on jobs, it is important to keep the distinction between ‘job’ and ‘self employment’. A ‘job’ is certain, regular and reasonably secure. We want to know how many such jobs have been created,” read one of his tweets.
Hours later, he softened his language, saying while selling pakodas can be considered “honourable self-employment”, it cannot be counted as a job.
Bureau Report
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