The Congress on Thursday launched an online campaign against the Narendra Modi government over unemployment in the country. A host of party leaders, including Rahul Gandhi, Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, Shashi Tharoor and Mallikarjun Kharge, tweeted using hashtag #SpeakUpForJobs, urging people to speak up against the policies of the Bharatiya Janata Party.

“One devastating policy after another, BJP has snatched away the livelihoods of crores of Indians and pushed our youth into a bleak future,” the Congress tweeted. “Join our #SpeakUpForJobs campaign and raise your voices against [the] BJP’s misadventures.”

Congress leader Rahul Gandhi listed various “failures” of the government, including the sudden imposition of a nationwide lockdown, decline in Gross Domestic Products and loss of jobs. “The policies of Modi government have caused the loss of crores of jobs and a historic fall in GDP,” he tweeted. “It has crushed the future of India’s youth. Let’s make the government listen to their voice.”

The party demanded that the Centre should provide justice to the unemployed and poor families by giving them Rs 6,000 for 12 months, stop cutting government jobs and support Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises, among others.

India’s economy has suffered because of the coronavirus pandemic. The country’s Gross Domestic Product growth rate contracted by 23.9% for the April to June quarter, government data released on August 31 revealed. On Tuesday, American credit rating agency Fitch Ratings sharply lowered its growth forecast for India, saying that the country’s Gross Domestic Product for the financial year 2020-’21 is expected to contract by 10.5%, instead of its earlier estimate of a 5% contraction.

“Jobs are under stress due to increasing privatisation, cut in government expenses and bad economic policies of the BJP government,” Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra tweeted. “The government has stopped hiring for existing vacancies. I am speaking up, you all [citizens] need to speak up too.”

Congress spokesperson Pawan Khera accused the saffron party of destroying the unorganised sector by helping their “industrialist friends”.

Thiruvananthapuram MP Shashi Tharoor said the job loss began during the 2016 demonetisation. “Salaried professionals, represented by the All India Professionals’ Congress, are being hard hit as estimates show that 21 million salaried professionals have lost their jobs during the last six months,” he said in a video message. “But the phenomenon began much earlier with demonetisation.”

Kharge cited a Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy report to show that India has likely lost 14 crore jobs in April, out of which three crores youth have suffered. His party colleague P Chidambaram, in a series of tweets, hit out at the Centre for its approach to the Goods and Services Tax shortfall.

“The government says it will give a ‘Letter of Comfort’ to the states to borrow money to bridge the GST Compensation gap,” he said. “These are just words of comfort on a piece of paper that has no value.”

Chidambaram added: “What states need is hard cash. Only the central government has multiple options and the flexibility to raise the resources and pay the shortfall in GST compensation to the states. If the states are forced to borrow, the axe will inevitably fall on capital expenditure by the states which has already suffered a cut.”

Gandhi and Chidambaram have been constantly attacking the government over its failure to handle the coronavirus pandemic and its subsequent negative effect on the economy, especially after the GDP figures were released.

On Wednesday, Gandhi criticised the Centre for its management of the coronavirus crisis, saying that Prime Minister Narendra Modi promised to end the crisis in 21 days but instead finished off small businesses and the livelihoods of crores of people. Chidambaram had on August 31 said the country was paying a heavy price for the “nonchalant and uncaring” attitude of the government, referring to the sharp decline in GDP figures.