Delhi Pradesh Congress Committee (DPCC) president Ajay Maken charged on Saturday that the promise of Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader Arvind Kejriwal before the state assembly elections to provide jobs to eight lakh peope in Delhi has proved to be “hollow”.

Maken alleged that Delhi Chief Minister Kejriwal had made such a promise in the manner Prime Minister Narendra Modi had pledged to give employment to crores of youth, which have remained “unfulfilled”.

Addressing a news conference at the DPCC office here, Maken raised a question, “When 82 per cent of the vacancies in the Delhi Employment Exchange itself have not been filled, how can the Delhi government give employment to lakhs of people?”

The Delhi Congress chief said that “out of the 357 posts in the Delhi Employment Exchange, only 18.5 per cent have been filled, which means 300 posts have not yet been filled in the Exchange itself till date.”

He quoted the Delhi government’s Statistical Handbook, to say that up to 31 December, 2016, as many as 12,97,364 people seeking jobs had been registered with the Delhi Employment Exchange, and if the figures for 2017-18 are included, he added, then the total number of people registered with the Delhi Employment Exchange goes up to 15 lakh.

Maken claimed that to a query filed by the Delhi Congress RTI Cell, the Delhi Employment Exchange, in its reply on 20 April 2018, gave the figure of the Delhi government giving jobs in 2016 to 102 people, in 2017 to 66 people and up to April 2018 to only 46 people.

“It shows that instead of giving employment to eight lakh people, the AAP government in Delhi has given employment to only 214 people, starting from 2016 till April 2018,” he said.

Maken also welcomed into the Congress fold Chaman Bhardwaj, BJP Mandal president from Kanti Nagar in the Gandhi Nagar assembly constituency, along with four other BJP leaders.

Another figure to join the Congress was Vedant Verma, son of former JD-U MP Pawan Verma. He was offered the Congress scarf by the DPCC president to welcome him into his party fold.

Besides Maken and Arvinder Singh Lovely, several Congress leaders ~ including chief spokesperson Sharmistha Mukherjee, senior leader Chattar Singh, chief media coordinator Mehndi Majid and chief of the DPCC RTI Cell Ved Prakash ~ were present on the occasion.