*NO JOBS NO VOTE* : MODI WARNED

INDIAN TOWN warns Prime Minister Modi ahead of 2019 polls.

THE UNEMPLOYMENT RATE in India,  nearly two-thirds of whose 1.3 billion people are under  15 years old, hit its highest level in 16 months in March at  6.23  percent, according to the-

Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy [CMIE}, an independent think tank.

Rakesh Kumar has a post graduate degree but works as a house painter in small town of  Kasbah Bonli in northwestern India.

The  31-year old, the only one of eight siblings to attend university, said his attempts to get a  salaried job had failed, and he-

Blamed the government of  Prime Minister Narendra Modi for not creating employment opportunities as it had promised.

''I voted for Modi last time,'' said Kumar, wearing a pink shirt and wrinkled, brown trousers that had droplets of paint on it.

''He had promised jobs, and I was sure I would get something. I won't vote for him again.''

Modi's failure to create tens of million jobs for the country's youth   -a promise that helped him secure the largest mandate in three decades in 2014  -would be-

The biggest threat to his bid for another term in general election due in May, 2019, many political analysts say.

That seems the case in Kasba Bonli, a market town in Rajasthan state on the edge of sprawling wheat fields, which voted overwhelmingly for Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party 'BJP'  in at assembly elections in 2013 and the general election in 2014.

''My two sons are educated but unemployed,'' said Hanuman Prasad Meena, a former leader in the town.

''Many farmers voted in Modi's name earlier, but he he has support here now.''

When Reuters visited the town in late 2013  [for link to this report, click reut.rs/2EICpSt], all the talk was about Modi, and how his promised business friendly reforms would boost growth and provide jobs.

But it doesn't seem to have quite worked. [Agencies].