The Prime Minister’s Office tweeted on Tuesday that Narendra Modi has “instructed” that the government recruit 10 lakh people “in mission mode in next 1.5 years”.

Vishal Viswanath Landge and Ajeet Sonkar did their math and concluded: “It’s an election stunt.”

You don’t need to know rocket science to figure out that in “1.5 years” or 18 months, the country will be at the doorstep of another general election — two of which Modi has won with a mix of promises that were mostly replaced by a polarising agenda that weaponised hate into a potent poll tool.

Several people, including at least one in the BJP, heard in the PMO declaration an unstated acknowledgement of the job crisis in the country.

But Vishal and Ajeet have a stake in what Modi says and does: both are unemployed youths.

Vishal has been on the road for the past 14 days as part of a march from Nagpur to Delhi by a group of 60 youths to demand that 5,000 posts of paramilitary troops be filled fast. The exams for the posts were held in 2019 and 2020.

On Tuesday, when the PMO was tweeting how Modi “reviewed the status of Human Resources in all departments and ministries and instructed that recruitment of 10 lakh people be done by the Government in mission mode in next 1.5 years”, Vishal had reached Deori in Madhya Pradesh.

The Staff Selection Commission (SSC) had advertised 60,000 general duty posts of constables and rifleman in July 2018. Nearly 60 lakh candidates applied, of whom 55,000 were selected in January 2021. There is no word on when the remaining 5,000 posts will be filled up.

Protests are being held in Delhi and other cities demanding that the remaining recruitments be made soon.

Ajeet, an unemployed Scheduled Caste youth, reached Lucknow from Allahabad on Tuesday to take the written test of a railways exam after a wait of three years.

The railways exam will be held on Wednesday for 35,000 posts in the non-technical popular Category (NTPC) of the railways. These posts were advertised by the Railway Recruitment Board in March 2019, just before the general election was announced.

Ajeet paid Rs 250 as application fee, which is Rs 500 for general category and OBC candidates.

Vishal pointed to a “pattern” of the government announcing recruitments ahead of elections and then dragging the process for two to four years, or worse, such as cancelling the drive by citing reasons such as paper leak.

“The government is talking about filling 10 lakh posts in 18 months. We have been protesting for the past 18 months to demand the filling up of all the posts for which advertisements had been issued and exams held. Nobody is bothered,” Vishal, who hails from Gondia district of Maharashtra, said.

“Nearly 1 lakh posts are lying vacant in the paramilitary forces alone. Why did the government not fill them up? When elections are round the corner, the government remembers about jobs,” he said. The recruitment drive announced on Tuesday will stretch deep into 2023, by when the 2024 Lok Sabha elections will only be months away.

The group of 60 that began the march from Nagpur two weeks ago is expected to reach Delhi in July and stage a demonstration.

In a written reply in the Rajya Sabha in March, Union minister of state for home Nityanand Rai had said there were 73,219 vacancies in the Central Armed Police Force and 18,124 vacancies in the Union Territories’ police forces.

In a reply in the Upper House on February 3, 2022, minister of state for personnel Jitendra Singh had said 8,72,243 posts were vacant in various ministries and departments of the central government as on March 1, 2020. The major recruiting agencies like the SSCs, RRB and the UPSC had hired 38,827 personnel in 2018-19, 1,48,377 in 2019-20 and 78,264 in 2020-21.

Ajeet said Tuesday’s job announcement was aimed at elections.

“The government announces a post and sits on it for years like the NTPC exam. When the candidates protest, it holds the exam and again delays the announcement of result. A process that should be completed in a year to 18 months is prolonged to four-five years. It helps the government in two parliamentary elections,” he said.

The Congress also alleged “jumlebaazi” (empty rhetoric) by Modi. “The Prime Minister is an expert, not at creating jobs but at creating ‘news’ over jobs,” Congress MP Rahul Gandhi tweeted.

Congress chief spokesperson Randeep Surjewala said Modi had promised to provide two crore jobs every year and that going by the pledge, 16 crore jobs should have been provided in the last eight years.

“The promise was to provide two crore jobs every year and 16 crore jobs were to be given in eight years. Now they are saying they will only provide 10 lakh jobs by 2024. Sixty lakh posts are lying vacant in governments. Thirty lakh posts are lying vacant in the central government. Jumlebaazi till how long?” he tweeted in Hindi.

Santosh Mehrotra, labour economist and a visiting faculty at the University of Bath in the UK, said the recruitment announcement on Twitter was shorn of details.

“The silent fiscal crisis facing the government has only worsened after Covid and its mismanagement. The announcement to recruit defence personnel for four-year stints (as part of the Agnipath scheme announced on Tuesday) is indicative of the worsening fiscal crisis. So the announcement of 10 lakh jobs should be seen in this light,” he said.

“We will wait to see if this announcement materialises. First, the government has mismanaged the economy through measures like demonetisation, hasty implementation of the goods and services tax, and the national lockdown at four hours’ notice in 2020. As a result, growth slowed sharply from 2017, and then India’s economy contracted in FY 2020-21 by more than twice as much as the world economy (6.6 per cent vs 3.1 per cent),” Mehrotra said.

“I also doubt the sincerity of the government,” he said, referring to the timing of the recruitment drive with the run-up to the 2024 elections.

“The government needs to fill vacant posts in five sectors: schools and universities, health services, police, judiciary and defence services. We will wait to see in which sectors these appointments are made and at what level. The country needs more health professionals and teachers, which will help the economy too,” Mehrotra said.