‘Classic shoot and scoot brand’: Hardeep Singh Puri slams Kharge over ‘fabricated figures and fake data’ 

Union Oil Minister Hardeep Singh Puri pointed out that Congress’s classic shoot and scoot brand of social media policy is based on lies, fabricated figures and fake data is back in action.

Puri said that the Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led government stood for credibility of promises, while Congress stood for crisis of credibility amid a war of words between the two parties over unkept poll pledges. He added that Congress’s senior most leaders do not check facts before going public with their delusional opinions.

In a post on X (formally Twitter), Puri wrote, “Under leadership of PM @narendramodiJi, India has witnessed significant employment growth over the years. Employment has increased by nearly 36%, adding around 170 million jobs between 2016-17 and 2022-23.”

“Let me also remind them that India’s economic trajectory demonstrates sustained job creation across key sectors. We are on our way to becoming the world’s 3rd largest economy very soon from the 11th spot their famed economists and policies left us in 2014,” he added.

The oil minister said that while providing direct and indirect employment opportunities to India’s youth the country's GDP grew at an average rate of over 6.5 percent during the same period.

Highlighting improvement in employment, Puri said the Indian labour market indicators show that the unemployment rate has declined to 3.2 percent in 2022-23. Agriculture remains dominant, employing over 45 percent of the workforce, with is a gradual shift toward manufacturing and services.

“According to PLFS, youth (age 15-29 years) unemployment rate has declined from 17.8 percent in 2017-18 to 10 percent in 2022-23. EPFO has reached 131.5 lakh in 2024 while Gig Economy workforce is expected to grow to 2.35 crore by 2029-30,” he wrote.

Slamming Congress president Kharge, the oil minister said that while Kharge sees ‘stampedes’, he is unaware that the Worker Population Ratio has increased by almost 26 percent between 2017-2023. “He is clearly looking at all the wrong places and getting fake data, or maybe is just too preoccupied with trying to hold his imploding party together and buys whatever lies his advisors sell to him; or he is just too fixated with the ‘unemployment’ of his party’s travelling Shehzada,” he said.

The latest tussle between BJP and Congress broke out a day after Mallikarjun Kharge claimed that “Modi ki guarantee” was a cruel joke on people, while the Prime Minister seized on the Congress president’s advice to his state colleagues that they should be guided by budgetary constraints in making poll announcements.

The PM launched a fierce attack on the Opposition party as he seized on Kharge’s comments that the Congress’ state units should make promises that were properly budgeted. On November 1, Modi said that Congress stood “badly exposed” in front of the people for promising them what the party knew it would never be able to deliver.