New Delhi: The Congress will deploy senior leaders across major state capitals on Sunday to allege that the Agnipath defence jobs scheme is like cheating the youth. The big push against the defence jobs scheme has come from Rahul Gandhi, who believes the scheme hurts the interests of the youth.
The pressers will come a day before the Congress plans major nationwide protests against the scheme on June 27 for which it has asked its MLAs and MLCs to hit the streets with at least 1000 supporters each. In preparation, the Congress has prepared a dossier on the defence jobs scheme and has given it to the lawmakers so they can forcefully explain the shortcomings of the plan to the locals.
Through the plan, the Congress wants to mobilise the young voters who, it believes, are fed up with the Centre due to the high rate of unemployment. While opposing the Agnipath scheme on certain grounds, the Congress has been highlighting that the young aspirants are frustrated as no recruitment has taken place in the armed forces over the past two years.
Citing numbers, the party said while Army recruitment was 53,431 in 2018-19, it went up to 80,572 in 2019-20 but has been nil for 2020-21 and 2021-22. “If the BJP brings Agniveers on contract for four years it will shatter the dreams of the young,” said Rahul on Thursday as he posted a video clip of an unhappy aspirant.
“I think, the main damage is being done, besides the lack of opportunity for the youth that is being curtailed. The numbers have come down, there are more than one lakh vacancies right now in the army, but those are not going to be filled up. The 46,000 vacancies under the new scheme will cover the three services and the vacancies will not be covered up in the long run,” party leader and Lieutenant Colonel (Retd) Manvendra Singh said. Singh is one of the several party leaders who will be deployed on Sunday to question the scheme.
Also read: Congress trying to woo Himachal’s ex-servicemen amid anti-Agnipath sentiment
“The Agnipath scheme is yet another ill-conceived disruption by the BJP government that will create fresh problems for India’s national security without solving its existing ones. The damage to the dreams of lakhs of aspirants has already sparked street protests in Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, Punjab, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh, Jharkhand, Delhi, and West Bengal. Two people were killed and reportedly government property worth Rs 1,000 crore got destroyed in the violence,” he said.
The Congress pointed out that although the government has announced that Agniveers will be given priority in hiring after four years of job by the Coast Guard, Assam Rifles, Central Armed Police Forces (CAPF), PSUs and private businesses, the Centre’s track record of hiring ex-servicemen was extremely poor. “According to 2021 data with the Ministry of Defence, ex-servicemen are entitled to 10 per cent of Group C and 20 per cent of Group D posts in the central government but the actual numbers are merely 1.29 per cent and 1.66 per cent respectively,” said Manvendra Singh.
Further, the CAPFs have a 10 per cent quota but ex-servicemen account for just 0.47 per cent in Group C, 0.87 per cent in Group B and 2.20 per cent in Group A posts, he said, adding that in 94 out of 170 CPSUs, ex-servicemen account for only 1.15 per cent of Groups C posts and 0.3 per cent of Group D posts against their quota of 14.5 per cent and 24.5 per cent respectively, he said.
According to the plan for Sunday, Gaurav Gogoi will go to Chennai, MM Pallam Raju to Bengaluru, Naseer Hussain to Hyderabad, Akhilesh Pratap Singh to Bhopal, Shakti Sinh Gohil to Delhi, Shobha Oza to Raipur, Sachin Sawant to Bhubaneshwar, Pawan Khera to Kolkata, Ajoy Kumar to Guwahati, Ajay maken to Lucknow, Kanhaiya Kumar to Patna, Anshul Avijit to Ranchi, Ajay Yadav to Jammu, Anand Madhab to Jalandhar, Supriya Shrinate to Mumbai, Alka Lamba to Ahmedabad, Deepender Hooda to Jaipur, Ranjeet Ranjan to Chandigarh, Manvendra Singh to Dehradun and Alok Sharma to Shimla to question the controversial scheme.
