Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) chief Mayawati on Thursday demanded that the Centre should immediately put a halt to the new ‘Agnipath scheme’ of recruiting soldiers, stating that it is “unfair towards rural youth”.
The scheme that was launched by Defence Minister Rajnath Singh on Tuesday has already ignited nationwide protests from lakhs of unemployed youth across the country.
The BSP supremo wondered that the Centre kept recruitment pending in the Army for a long time and now wanted to implement a scheme for a short duration of four years.
Mayawati tweeted in Hindi, “It may have been called an attractive scheme, but the youth are dissatisfied and angry. They are openly opposing the change in the Army recruitment system.”
“They believe that the government is limiting the soldiers’ tenure to four years to eliminate pension benefits in the army and government jobs, which is grossly unfair and deleterious to the future of rural youth and their families,” Mayawati said.
In a series of tweets, the former Uttar Pradesh chief minister said that the new move of recruitment will add to the woes of the people already beset with inflation and poverty.
“People in the country are already afflicted by rising poverty, inflation, unemployment, wrong policies, and arrogant working style of the government, in such a situation, the uneasiness spread among the youth regarding the new recruitment system in the army is causing anxiety.
“The government should reconsider its decision immediately, this is the demand of BSP,” Mayawati added.
