Even as the Modi government dithered over the economics of implementing the “One Rank One Pension” (OROP) scheme for the armed forces ahead of its first anniversary in power, Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi took on the ruling dispensation on this issue on Saturday: shortly after meeting members of the ex-servicemen’s cell of his party, he stressed that though the UPA government had allocated money for it, the Modi government had failed to implement the scheme.
“We will pressurise the government and ask them to take a decision at the earliest,” he said.
Raising the emotional pitch on the issue, he reminded the government that those who sought the implementation of the OROP scheme were the ones who secured the borders of the nation. “They [ex servicemen] had knocked on the doors of the government, but nothing materialised. The Army, Navy, Air Force take care of the nation, secure our borders; their demands should be met,” Mr. Gandhi said.
Antony attacks govt.Later in the day, Congress veteran and the former Defence Minister A.K. Antony took the story one notch up when he slammed the Modi government for compromising on national security. “The present government has compromised our national security,” he said, pointing out that “The defence expenditure this year is the lowest in recent years.”
The frontal attack on the BJP-led NDA government on the twin issues of national security and welfare of soldiers — an issue that the BJP has always sought to give a nationalistic spin — comes just two days before Prime Minster Narendra Modi’s scheduled first anniversary rally in Mathura where the government hoped the Prime Minister would announce the OROP scheme.
Indeed, earlier this month, shortly after the Defence Ministry cleared the implementation of the OROP mechanism, Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar had told journalists in Goa that the Finance Ministry would clear OROP “in a few days.” But with Finance Minister Arun Jaitley saying on Friday that the “methodology of calculation” was still being worked out in consultation with the Defence Ministry, it looked unlikely that it would be resolved by Monday.
