The Congress was in a major embarrassment on Monday after senior leader Manish Tewari refused to sign an opposition memorandum opposing the Centre’s new Agneepath military recruitment scheme.
Six opposition members – Professor Saugata Roy (TMC), Sudip Bandyopadhyay (TMC), Supriya Sule (NCP), Shaktisinh Gohil (Congress), AD Singh (RJD), Rajni Patil (Congress) signed the memorandum submitted to the Defense Minister . Rajnath Singh.
Sources said Congress MP Manish Tewari did not sign the memorandum addressed to Singh, who was briefing the Parliamentary Consultative Committee on Defence, about the plan. Singh was making a presentation to the committee, during which some opposition MPs demanded immediate withdrawal of the scheme.
The meeting, which lasted for about two hours, was addressed by the Defense Minister and the three chiefs of the armed forces. Opposition MPs including Congress, Nationalist Congress Party and Trinamool Congress objected to the new recruitment scheme and said it should be withdrawn.
The purpose of the presentation was to address the concerns of opposition leaders ahead of the monsoon session of Parliament beginning on July 18.
not the first time
This is not the first instance of Tiwari supporting the Agneepath plan as last month also, the senior Congress leader had said that he felt India “Young armed forces are needed” – thus a departure from the party’s official stance on the plan.
Expressing his view on the issue, the Congress MP from Anandpur Sahib had said on Twitter, “I sympathize with the youth who are concerned with the Agneepath recruitment process. The reality is that India needs a young armed force with a light human footprint on state-of-the-art weaponry technology. The Union Armed Forces should not have an employment guarantee programme.”
Tewari said there is a need for young armed forces as modern warfare has become more technologically advanced. The MP said the army should have a “light footprint”.
The Congress at that time distanced itself from Tiwari’s support of the Agneepath plan. Stating that the party would oppose the plan with all its might, Congress general secretary Jairam Ramesh had said: “Congress MP Manish Tewari has written an article on Agneepath. While @INCIndia is the only democratic party, it must be said that his views are entirely his own and not of the party, which strongly believes that Agneepath is anti-national and anti-youth, bulldozed without discussion.
The Agneepath scheme, which was unveiled last month, sparked protests across the country, during which trains were set on fire, and public properties were vandalized by defense job candidates. The opposition parties had supported the protest and demanded its withdrawal.
The Center tried to ease the concerns of the Armed Forces candidates and released the document ‘Myth vs Facts’ to address their queries. In a series of social media posts by the Center, it has been said that in the coming years, the recruitment of ‘Agnivar’ will be almost thrice the existing recruitment in the armed forces and ruled out any change in the regimental system.
The Indian Air Force (IAF) recently said that it has received around 7.5 lakh applications under the scheme. The registration process started from 24th June.
(with PTI inputs)
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