Chennai, July 11 (IANS) Tamil Nadu BJP president Nainar Nagenthran on Saturday launched a sharp attack on Chief Minister C. Joseph Vijay, accusing his government of failing to fill thousands of vacancies across government departments while selectively announcing jobs for a limited number of beneficiaries.

In a strongly worded statement, Nagenthran alleged that the state government was neglecting the aspirations of lakhs of educated unemployed youth by delaying recruitment to key government services despite the existence of a large number of vacant posts.

Referring to the deaths that occurred during Vijay’s election campaign meeting in Karur last year, the BJP leader said the government had later announced government jobs for the affected families after assuming office. While describing the move as a humanitarian gesture, he questioned whether such selective appointments could compensate for the lack of large-scale recruitment across the state.

“Instead of addressing the employment needs of lakhs of deserving young people who have worked hard to qualify for government jobs, the government appears to be focusing only on a handful of appointments,” he said.

Nagenthran claimed that vacancies existed across several sectors, including higher education, school education, healthcare and public utilities. He alleged that, of the 181 government Arts and Science Colleges in Tamil Nadu, nearly 125 were functioning without principals and that around 9,000 Assistant Professor posts remained vacant.

He further claimed that more than half of the professor posts in major universities, including the University of Madras, Madurai Kamaraj University and Bharathidasan University, had not been filled.

The BJP leader also alleged that over 30,000 intermediate teacher posts and thousands of other teaching positions in government schools remained vacant.

He said more than 7,000 government nurses were demanding permanent appointments, while vacancies also persisted in the Tamil Nadu Electricity Board, where job aspirants, including Gangmen, had been seeking recruitment based on merit.

He further claimed that sanitation workers, doctors, anganwadi employees and transport workers had also been demanding regular government appointments.

Criticising the government’s recruitment process, Nagenthran pointed out that only 26 vacancies had been announced for this year’s TNPSC Group-I examination despite the large number of unfilled posts in various departments.

He also questioned why the government had not released a department-wise recruitment schedule despite thousands of candidates having already qualified in examinations such as the Teachers Eligibility Test (TET) and Teachers Recruitment Board (TRB) examinations.

Calling upon the Chief Minister to expedite recruitment, Nagenthran urged the government to immediately fill vacancies across departments and ensure that deserving candidates waiting for government employment received appointments without further delay.

–IANS

aal/pgh