Congress announces 50% reservation for women in govt jobs ahead of Assam polls

As the Assembly elections draw closer in poll-bound Assam, continuing with its series of 'guarantees', Congress made another announcement for women of the state on Thursday. It said if the opposition 'Mahajot' or Grand Alliance is voted to power in Assam, it will ensure 50 per cent reservation for women in government jobs. All India Mahila Congress President Sushmita Dev said while addressing a press conference said that the Congress-led alliance will focus more on the upliftment of women and youths.

"When the Congress-headed grand alliance will form the government, we will implement a 50 per cent reservation for women. This will be our guarantee and it will be one of the first things we're going to do," she said, reported PTI.

Dev asserted that Congress and the grand alliance believe in accountability and the guarantee of jobs.

"Youths and women of Assam don't want charity. They want job opportunities and want to contribute to the economy of the state," she said, taking a dig at the BJP-led state government's various schemes of direct benefit transfer.

All India Mahila Congress President further said the women reservation issue will be a part of guarantees in the manifesto for the upcoming Assam assembly polls. Women form a big chunk of the Assam voters. Out of a total of over 2.31 crore, voters in Assam, the women electorate are more than 1.14 crore.

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All India Congress Committee General Secretary Jitendra Singh said the party's Asom Bachaon Ahok Yatra' reached the poorest segment of the society after travelling over 10,000 km across the state.

"While interacting with the public, the most important issue that came out was unemployment. Insufficient salary is also another crucial issue among the educated youths working in the state. BJP did not solve any problem, but gave Citizenship (Amendment) Act to Assam," Singh added, reported PTI.
 

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Congress Assam unit president Ripun Bora said if the grand alliance will be voted to power, it will create a separate department for jobs generations.

"We have already announced to create five lakh government jobs once our government is there. The BJP promised 25 lakh jobs in five years but actually gave employment to only 80,000 youths in five years. There are another 58,000 sanctioned posts that are vacant at present in addition to 20,000 SC and ST unfulfilled backlog posts," Bora said.

The Congress has formed a broad-based alliance with AIUDF, BPF, CPI, CPI(M), CPI(ML), and Anchalik Gana Morcha (AGM) to fight the upcoming assembly election against the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) for 126-member Assam house.

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Congress Five Guarantees

Priyanka Gandhi at her rally in Tezpur on March 2, launched the 'Five Guarantees' campaign and promised that if Congress is elected to power, then it would provide Rs 2,000 every month to homemakers as 'Grihini Samman', and provide free electricity up to 200 units to all households. Gandhi also assured that her party would hike the daily wages of tea garden workers to Rs 365 from the existing Rs 167, and provide five lakh government jobs to youth in the next five years.

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(With PTI Inputs)