NEW DELHI: After two days of high-visibility slugfest, came a sparring match. Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi termed as hogwash the Government’s promise of fixing the one-rank-one-pension anomalies within two months, claiming what was being plied as OROP was merely a “pension enhancement scheme”.
Having taken to the streets on the back of a suicide of an ex-serviceman over OROP, Rahul was obviously not ready to back off, particularly after a group of 60-70 ex-servicemen came to meet him on Friday. A charged-up Rahul attacked the Centre: “What the PM says is One-Rank-One Pension is actually pension enhancement and not OROP. PM should stop lying on the issue.’’ He said he had arrived at this understanding after speaking to the ex-servicemen.
Some of them flanked him as he briefed the media at the Congress headquarters. Rahul was clearly angry over the Delhi Police’s stonewalling of the ‘OROP-suicide’ protests. But for the record, he said: “I’m not bothered about my detention, but the government will have to give the military personnel OROP. It’s the right of the armed forces personnel.’’ If the government had given them what was their due “why they are agitating at Jantar Mantar for 509 days”, he asked.
Mindful of the criticism that the OROP suicide by Ram Kishan Grewal was neither honourable nor befitting of a soldier, Rahul said that for the veterans it was “not a question of money but honour and justice….They said if the government say it has no money, they would stop demanding OROP.’’
Well, successive governments have dithered in fully implementing the scheme that would bring pension parity among the armed forces ranks, irrespective of their date of retirement, precisely because of the burden it would put on the exchequer. There has been the apprehension that it was also open up a pandora’s box of similar demands. But Rahul rebutted this governmental concern by accusing it of giving away `1.10 lakh crore by way of loan waivers to 15 top corporate houses, but not providing money for the veterans. “There used to be a slogan, ‘Jai Jawan, Jai Kisan’. Neither the farmers nor the jawans are respected today.’’
With a Kisan Yatra in UP under his belt, Rahul was clearly now trying to champion the cause of the jawan now, to reclaim Shashtri’s famous slogan, usurped by the BJP. So, it’s as much a copyright battle.