NEW DELHI: The Aam Aadmi Party has strongly denounced Centre’s Agnipath scheme and called it a betrayal to the nation. The party has unequivocally stated that it is better to rollback the scheme rather than leaving youth jobless after 4 years.
Senior Aam Aadmi Party Leader and Rajya Sabha MP Sanjay Singh today hit out against the BJP-led Central Government over their announcement of Agnipath, the new short-term recruitment policy for the Armed Forces and asked the Centre to recall the proposal.
Singh also said that PM Narendra Modi had formulated this proposal to ‘benefit private companies’. He said, “Young aspirants join the army with great difficulty but now PM Modi will throw them out in just four years; this is betrayal, it should be withdrawn immediately. PM Modi sold all public assets to his friends be it mines, SAIL, coal, LIC, banks, roads, electricity, water, BPCL, airports, ports; now he needs security guards to protect them. We are dreading the possibility of PM Modi building a private army for his capitalist friends; we’ve already seen a scary practice of hiring private armies globally.
AAP and CM Shri Arvind Kejriwal demand PM Modi to save this country from the anger of the youth; he shouldn’t wait till its too late to take the law back. There is no provision of pension, future salary, or job plan in this scheme. After the disasters of demonetisation, GST & farm laws, the Modi Government has made its intentions to destroy the nation through the Agnipath scheme.
PM Modi’s jumlas have hurt the country so bad that BJP is now being called Bharatiya Jhootha Party. The Aam Aadmi Party will protest against the Agneepath scheme in all districts of Uttar Pradesh tomorrow and submit memorandums to the government.”
Singh accused the PM of treating the army like a private agency and said, “This BJP government has economically ruined the country in the past by bringing in demonetisation and implementation of GST. It has also caused hardship to the farmers by trying to bring in the Farm Bill, which it eventually had to repeal. It has caused hardship to every family in the country by letting inflation soar through the sky. Now by introducing the Agnipath scheme, PM Narendra Modi is trying to make the Indian Armed Forces his ‘private agency’.”
“The Indian Armed Forces are the pride of this nation and they are the key reason for the nation’s security. Each of our soldiers is incredibly brave and are even ready to lay their lives for the nation. The Agnipath Scheme that PM Narendra Modi has recently announced has been formulated to benefit the private organisations in our country. They expect our youngsters to prepare themselves to join the Indian Armed Forces for a period of 4 years,” he said.
In this four-year period a fair amount of time will be spent in his training and leave periods, and in the little remaining period of time the recruits will work for the Indian Armed Forces. Then when so many youngsters will be let go after the four-year period, they will have no other option besides begging for jobs in an already scarce market and many of these youngsters will only be eligible to work as poorly-paid security officers for private industries in our country.”
He went ahead to say that the recruits may end up becoming ‘security guards’ for PM Modi’s friends. “This Narendra Modi-led BJP government has sold off so many of our national resources like SAIL, national banks, coal, LIC, BPCL, airports and ports to a handful of private companies in the country. There is going to be a large demand for security guards to protect these important institutions that have selectively been given to some private companies.”
“Is the intention of PM Narendra Modi to convert the Indian Armed Forces into a Security Guard training centre for these private companies? These youngsters who exit from the Indian Armed Forces after four years will eventually end up becoming private security guards for this handful of companies. Has the Agnipath scheme been formulated for this purpose by this government?,” he asked.
“This is PM Narendra Modi’ss way of telling these private companies ‘you don’t need to train people to fulfill your need of security guards, the government will use the Indian Armed Forces to fulfill this purpose of yours’. After selling off so many of our national resources, this is what this government has now come to do. It is trying to ensure that there is an army of trained security guards for their disposal,” he said.
He called the move an insult to the country and its army and added, “This is an insult to the Indian Armed Forces of this country. It is an insult to the youngsters of this great nation. First, the government says that it will create 2 crore jobs in the country, then it says that ‘youngsters can sell pakoras and earn their income’.
“Then the government says that you can sell gobar and earn your income. This is a government that has ‘gobar’ filled in its head and they are just incapable of providing self-respecting jobs to its youngsters. Therefore we request this arrogant government to take back this Agnipath scheme. This is a mistake just like the Farm Bill initiative that this government tried to bring in over a year ago,” he said.
Kejriwal requested the government at that time to take back the Farm Bill, but the government did not listen to him and the crores of farmers who took to the streets and protested for over a year, where as many as 750 farmers died protesting.
“It was only after all of this that the government repealed the bill. Today the youth of this country have come out to protest against the Agnipath Scheme and AAP requests this government to act in time to save this nation from burning any further. The youth of this nation are very angry with the proposal that the government has put forward. There are indications that their protest will not end soon, and we request the government to not act after further loss has been caused – like it was in the case of the Farm Bill,” he said.
The MP further announced that AAP will show its support for the youth by protesting throughout UP tomorrow. He concluded, “Do not try to further justify your arrogance like you did in the case of the Farm Bills.
“The citizens of this nation are tired of the BJP’s lies. The party should change its name to Bharatiya Jhootha Party. Shri Arvind Kejriwal and the Aam Aadmi Party have already requested the Central government to take back the Agnipath proposal. We once again reiterate that it should be done at the earliest, so that there is no further damage to our nation. Our youngsters join the Indian Armed Forces to serve the nation with pride,” he said.
Earlier there was a job guarantee of 17 years and they received their pension. They were also aware that family will be taken care of if they happen to die. Now you are saying that after four years we will retain only 25% of the youngsters. This will lead to a situation where every youngster will just spend those four years trying to please their senior officers. The duty towards the nation will suffer in such a situation. Tomorrow, AAP will show its solidarity with those protesting against the Agnipath Scheme in all districts of Uttar Pradesh,” he added.