70,000 jobs? Show the list

BRS working president K.T. Rama Rao put a simple test to Chief Minister A. Revanth Reddy at a youth meet in Hyderabad on July 18: if the Congress government has really filled 70,000 government jobs, show the proof — department by department, with appointment orders — and he’ll retire from politics. That is not a metaphor; he said it on stage. According to a contemporaneous report, he also asked Rahul Gandhi where the campaign promises to Telangana’s youth went.

Here is what’s on the record, minus the drumroll. The Congress government itself has claimed different tallies at different times: 60,000 jobs “in the first year”, 67,760 recruitments “in 15 months”, and 70,000 in 30 months — all on official channels. Those are government assertions, not an audited breakdown. The Telangana State Public Service Commission’s site shows fresh notifications under Congress — Group-I issued on 19 February 2024 among them — so the “no notifications” line doesn’t fly. What still isn’t published is the spreadsheet that matters: how many are fresh hires versus processes inherited from the BRS term, how many appointment orders actually went out, and in which departments.

KTR’s sharper charges — that Congress promised two lakh government jobs in a year, a job calendar, an unemployment allowance, scooters and loans — are campaign-accountability questions until the government tables the ledger. The 16,978 figure he cited from an Assembly exchange needs the Assembly record before it graduates from a rally line to a fact.

The BJP and the TDP can sit this one out; neither ran Telangana, and neither is owed the credit Congress is trying to book with a round number. The Congress government in Telangana has had ample time to publish the breakdown and hasn’t bothered to answer the basic “what makes up your 70,000” — which is the whole point of the claim.