New Delhi: Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Wednesday alleged that around two crore people lost their jobs in the last four months amid the coronavirus pandemic and asserted that the "truth about unemployment" can not be hidden from the country.
Citing a media report, he said in a tweet in Hindi, "In the last 4 months, around 2 crore people have lost their jobs. The future of 2 crore families is in the dark. The truth about unemployment and destruction of the economy cannot be hidden from the country by peddling fake news and hatred on Facebook."
The news report cited by Gandhi claimed that around 1.89 crore jobs were lost due to the coronavirus pandemic from April onwards.
A massive political row broke out after a report by the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) last week alleged that senior Facebook executives had opposed applying hate speech rules to posts by certain BJP leaders, with the BJP and the Congress engaged in a bitter war of words over the issue.
Also read: Centre's policies left 14 crore people unemployed: Rahul Gandhi
"We cannot allow any manipulation of our hard-earned democracy through bias, fake news and hate speech. As exposed by WSJ, Facebook's involvement in peddling fake and hate news needs to be questioned by all Indians," Gandhi tweeted on Tuesday.
Hitting back at the Congress, Union Information Technology Minister and senior BJP leader Ravi Shankar Prasad said people whose political base has "shrunk like anything" seek to dominate discourse on these platforms and asserted that everybody regardless of his ideology has the right to air views.
He said former Congress president Rahul Gandhi believes that any organisation that does not work to his liking is acting under the pressure of the BJP and the RSS.
Earlier on August 9, Indian Youth Congress had kickstarted its nationwide campaign 'Rozgar Do', aiming to raise the voice of unemployed youth across the country.
"India is the youngest country in the world and with the maximum numbers of employable youth, so employment stands as the most important need of the country. This is why we have decided to launch the 'Rozgar Do' campaign to raise the voice of the unemployed youth across the country," the youth wing of the Congress had said in a statement.
With inputs from PTI
Also read: Raising issue of unemployment, IYC to start 'Rozgar Do' campaign from today
