Bhubaneswar: The Biju Janata Dal (BJD) on Monday questioned the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)‑led state government’s claim of providing government employment to around 45,000 youths in Odisha over the past two years, stating that recruitment advertisements for nearly 39,000 of these posts had been issued during the previous Naveen Patnaik‑led BJD government.
In a press statement, BJD spokesperson Lenin Mohanty said the BJP government had failed to keep its promises regarding employment. He stated that Chief Minister Mohan Charan Majhi, in his statement earlier on Monday, claimed that his government had made appointments to 45,000 vacant government posts during the last two years, which was misleading.
Referring to a reply in the Odisha Legislative Assembly, Mohanty said CM Majhi had provided detailed information regarding the appointments made during the last two years and the dates on which advertisements for recruitment to these posts had been issued. He said that according to these details, out of the total 45,000 appointments made, advertisements for 39,000 posts had been issued by the Naveen government between 2020 and 2023.
“This means that the BJP government has made only 6,000 fresh appointments to government posts. This clearly shows that the BJP has failed to fulfil the promises it made in the field of employment during the last two years. In its election manifesto, the BJP had promised to provide 1.5 lakh government jobs in five years. Accordingly, it should have provided employment to 65,000 persons in two years, but it has made appointments to only 6,000 posts,” Mohanty said.
The BJD leader added that 24 recruitment examinations had been cancelled in the past 24 months, reflecting the government’s lack of competence in handling the recruitment process.
“According to government data, as of January 2026, 94,485 government posts are lying vacant. Besides this, in the private industrial sector, the BJP had promised to create employment opportunities and provide jobs to 3.5 lakh youth of the state. Still, this promise has turned out to be nothing more than a hollow assurance,” Mohanty alleged.
The BJD claimed that Odisha’s unemployment rate had risen from 0.9 per cent under the BJD government to 3.5 per cent under the BJP government, accusing it of misleading people instead of addressing the employment crisis.
IANS
