Congress will fill 22 lakh government vacancies: Maken

New Delhi, April 29 (IANS) Former Union Minister and Congress' New Delhi seat candidate Ajay Maken on Monday promised that if his party comes to power after the general elections, then it will fill the 22 lakh vacant government posts in an year.

Maken held several interactive meetings during his padyatras in Ayur Vigyan Nagar, Gurudwara Singh Sabha, Jungpura Extension, Sat Nagar, Tikona Park, Karol Bagh, Tel Mandi and Pahar Ganj to reach out to the voters.

"The Congress party has promised of filling the 22 lakh government vacancies within a year of coming to power," he said,

Recalling the party's work in 2006-07 when the sealing process started first in the national capital, he said: "The UPA government would protect the small and medium traders or entrepreneurs from vagaries of sealing as it had done before in 2006."

"As the Union Urban Development Minister, I had made 170 amendments in Delhi Master Plan to protect commercial establishments and small and medium traders."

Maken also said that if Congress returns to power, a simplified pro-business GST would replace the existing GST that the Narendra Modi government brought into place.

The Congress leader faces a triangular contest, with sitting BJP MP Meenakshi Lekhi and the Aam Aadmi Party's Brijesh Goyal in the contest.

Besides Maken, Congress candidate for the North West Delhi parliamentary constituency Rajesh Lilothia also addressed several public meetings, undertook padayatras and held corner meetings in the Narela assembly segment of the seat.

Addressing a public meeting near the Aggarwal Tower in Narela, he appealed to people to bring back Congress to power as both the BJP and the AAP had "betrayed the people of Delhi".

"It was imperative for the Congress to win all the seven Lok Sabha seats in Delhi as the party is sure to form a government at the Centre, under the leadership of Congress President Rahul Gandhi," he said.

Lilothia, who is pitted against BJP's Hans Raj Hans and AAP's Gugan Singh, said the last five years of Modi rule, there were attacks on secular and democratic forces, and even the common people were not spared and became victims of the BJP government's high-handednessA

He accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi of working as the agent of a few rich industrialists by totally ignoring the poor and common people.

The elections on all the seven Lok Sabha seats in the national capital is scheduled on May 12 in the sixth phase. The BJP had won all the seats from the national capital in 2014 Lok Sabha polls.