New Delhi: The Congress on Wednesday demanded the setting up of an ex-servicemen commission on the lines of the SC/ST Commission to address the grievances of military veterans.
The party’s newly-appointed chairman of its ex-servicemen wing Col Rohit Chaudhry (retired) accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi of weakening the defence forces and said there is a massive backlog of vacancies in them.
Chaudhry also alleged that the government has toyed with the nation’s security by introducing the ‘Agnipath’ scheme, which provides only four years of employment in the armed forces.
He added that once the Congress government comes to power at the Centre, it will reverse the scheme.
The Congress leader also blamed the prime minister for the anomalies in the implementation of the One Rank, One Pension (OROP) scheme.
“The Modi government has toyed with ex-servicemen and soldiers. In 2014, it came to power by taking their votes but even after nine years, has not fulfilled their demand for OROP,” he told reporters at a press conference here.
“We have totally been against this Agnipath plan since the beginning. We want to tell PM Modi that he should not mess with the country’s security system by implementing the Agnipath scheme. This scheme should be immediately rolled back, failing which we will launch a movement against it across the country,” Chaudhry said.
“PM Modi has betrayed the defence community and the nation on OROP implementation and created a divide among the defence cadres by inducing large-scale anomalies in OROP-2, thereby endangering the nation’s security,” he alleged.
Chaudhry said Congress promises to scrap the Agnipath scheme when it comes to power.
The UPA government had reserved 10 per cent of jobs in various departments for ex-servicemen who retire early, he said, adding that the BJP government did not fill any of these vacancies.
As a result of this, there are 7.5 lakh vacant posts which are reserved for ex-servicemen in the central government and the PSUs, Chaudhry claimed.
He further said that every year, about 75,000 soldiers retire but under the Agnipath scheme, the government is recruiting only 45,000, leading to a shortfall of 30,000 annually.
The strength of the defence forces stands at about 15 lakhs today, but it may come down to 10 lakhs within the next few years, the Congress leader claimed.
Since there was no fresh recruitment in 2020, 2021 and 2022 due to COVID-19, there was already a shortage of 2-2.25 lakh personnel in the forces, he added.
Chaudhry further claimed that the defence fraternity felt “betrayed” by PM Modi and the NDA government.
He alleged that the pension of JCOs has been reduced by almost Rs 6,000 which has resulted in large-scale disgruntlement among them and “other ranks” who are sitting on a dharna at Jantar Mantar and at all district headquarters across the country.
Chaudhry also alleged that the central government concealed the information about recommendations by the Reddy Commission, formed in 2015 to examine the OROP issue, from the Supreme Court.
He said while the Reddy Commission had recommended equalisation in pension anomalies after every three years, the government was insisting on five years.
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