Chandigarh: Launching a massive attack on Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Thursday accused him of "systematically dismantling the employment system in the country". He was addressing a rally at Assandh town of Karnal district – his first in Haryana for the upcoming October 5 state assembly elections.

Notably, it was first time this poll season that two of the top state Congress leaders, namely former two-time chief minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda and former state Congress chief and a tall Dalit leader Kumari Selja, both of whom belonged to rival factions within Congress, shared a dais as they were holding separate programmes till this day. Selja was, however, conspicuous for her absence at Rahul’s rally at Hisar, held later towards evening.

Addressing the rally, the leader of opposition, Rahul raised the issue of what he held the deplorable scale of unemployment in Haryana and recounted his recent visit to Texas, where he had met about 15-20 youths from Haryana who had illegally migrated to US via "donkey route".

Stating that the youths had gone there in search of better future in the wake of absence of any employment in their home state, Rahul held that he was told about their harrowing journey how they reached US and were compelled to live with 20 others packed in a room. "They had to sell off their land or take loans on high interest rates as they did not have any opportunity to start their business with Rs 50 lakh with no guarantee of profit here, he held.

Touching an emotional nerve, Rahul gave details of their journey and how they saw people dying on their way to reach the US. He went on to allege that these youths cannot meet their families for 10 years and cannot even return to perform the last rites if their parents die. Rahul further alleged that it was because the Modi government and the state government had systematically ended the employment system.

Rahul also raised the issue of fast spreading menace of drug abuse in Haryana and alleged that it was shocking that thousands of kilograms of heroin was being seized from Adani’s port.