The Interim/Vote On Account Budget 2019 has just been presented and it seems Opposition parties have already got a mega election campaign slogan to punch a major blow against Prime Minister Narendra Modi and expose his tall claims. The key campaign rallying cry against Modi will be none other than rampant joblessness and the high rate of unemployment.

The 2019 Budget was all about immediate relief, tax reductions and gains, and other election sops that may gladden the hearts of small taxpayers, the middle class and pensioners (people who earn up to ₹6.5 lakh per year will not need to pay income tax, capital gains from house property sale extended to two houses, etc). Also, farmers under the PM Kisan Yojana who earn less than ₹5 lakh a year will be exempt from tax, apart from loan waivers. But it is the gift of direct cash transfers of ₹6,000 per year to small farmers that has come under a lot of derision, as it translates to ₹17 a day for the benighted farmer.

However, there is nothing in the Interim Budget that can help boost jobs and employment and it comes on the heels of the scandalous report only a day before by the National Sample Survey Office that the unemployment rate in the country was at an all-time high in 45 years of 6.1 per cent in 2017-18. It’s been all the more embarrassing for the Modi government as the report was scooped by Business Standard after the only two independent members of the National Statistical Commission, PC Mohanan and J Meenakshi, resigned in disgust as they were not allowed to publish the report and present the true picture to the public. In a desperate bid to hide its humiliation, the Modi government now disputes the report, saying it is only a draft and that the data has not been approved as yet.

One only has to see how distraught farmers and a distressed agricultural sector in many parts of the country has pushed the BJP out of power in the recent state elections in Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh. Apart from falling crop prices and rising debts in the farming sector, Modi’s centrally-aided schemes like the much-touted PM-AASHA programme—which promised remunerative prices and a 50 per cent return to farmers on production cost—simply flopped in its feasibility and disastrous implementation. In MP, even state schemes like the Bhavantar price support scheme only led to wholesale prices crashing for pulses and oilseeds. So angry and agitated were farmers against the BJP that they were quick to believe populist poll promises made by Opposition parties like the Congress like loan waivers, crop insurance, subsidised power, and even high price for paddy procurement.

As media reports show, in MP, for instance, the BJP was ahead in 62 per cent of urban seats while the Congress gained only in 33 per cent seats; then the latter soared in rural areas where the Congress was ahead in 52 per cent seats and the BJP in only 44 per cent seats. So, how can joblessness become the rallying cry of Opposition parties, especially of Congress President Rahul Gandhi, who first came with the slogan mocking Modi as a “Suit-boot ki sarkar (government of the rich)”?

The report on unemployment was collated by the National Sample Survey Office for its periodic labour force survey (PLFS), which is then vetted by members of the National Statistical Commission. Business Standard, which scooped the story, not only showed a four-decade high of unemployment in the country in 2017-18; but also revealed that unemployment and joblessness were at its lowest under Congress prime minister Dr Manmohan Singh in 2011-12 when it stood at 2.2 per cent. Significantly, it showed that joblessness was higher in urban areas (7.8 per cent) as compared to rural areas (5.3 per cent). Data also reveals that more people are withdrawing from the workforce as the labour force participation rate was 36.9 per cent in 2017-18, lower than 39.5 per cent in 2011-2012. It must be noted that the survey is the first of its kind after the 2016 demonetisation.

Worse for Modi, who prides himself on getting youth votes, the NSSO figures show that unemployment among rural males in the age group of 15-29 years jumped three-fold to 17.4 per cent in 2017-18, as compared to 5 per cent in 2011-12. Joblessness among rural females was at a high of 13.6 per cent as compared to 4.8 per cent in the same period.  

Also, a report by a business think tank, the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE), shows that 1.1 crore or 10 million people lost their jobs in 2018 while the unemployment rate hit a high of 7.4 per cent ending December 2018, the highest in 15 months. If the Opposition is serious about punching holes in Modi’s jumla (fake promises) of providing 200 million jobs a year, it need not look further.

In fact, most of Modi’s government policies on employment have been ill-advised and unsustainable—Make in India; Skill India or the Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Vikas Yojna; the Pradhan Mantri Employment Generation Programme; the Pradhan Mantri Mudra Scheme; and the Pradhan Mantri Rozgar Protsahan Yojana. For instance, in response to a query in the Lok Sabha, Shiv Pratap Shukla, the Minister of State for Finance, said Pradhan Mantri Mudra Scheme loans that have turned into NPAs have doubled in the last two years to ₹7,200 crore in 2018.

Typically, the Modi government has rejected the leaked unemployment data report to say its various schemes are generating millions of jobs a year. As Modi said in August last year, the unemployment numbers are high because the “traditional matrix of measuring jobs is simply not good enough to measure new jobs in the new economy of New India”!

The Opposition parties will only have to blame themselves if they throw away the best slogan of joblessness and unemployment to unseat Modi, who still today maintains his lead in the popularity sweepstakes though he has slipped considerably in the last four years. Or it’s time for a New Opposition in New India.