NEW DELHI: Dubbing the Congress Party as "unjust," the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Sunday said that the grand old party should apologise for doing nothing for the ex-servicemen over One Rank, One Pension (OROP) scheme.
“The Congress Party has done nothing for the ex-servicemen. All Congress leaders from Indira Gandhi to Rahul Gandhi, that includes Sonia Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi, have done nothing but injustice to the ex-servicemen,” BJP spokesperson G V L Narasimha Rao told ANI here.
“Today is the time for Congress Party to actually apologise to the ex-servicemen for all its wrongdoings and for not implementing it (OROP) for nearly four decades,” he stressed.
“Millions of ex-servicemen from across the country are welcoming this announcement of OROP by the government... There are a few hundred people who are asking for more. They should keep aside all their small demands and welcome this grand gesture of the Prime Minister,” Rao added.
The Congress Party yesterday criticised the current NDA regime for misleading the people of this country by saying that previous governments had not acted on the issue of the OROP scheme.
"Today's claim by the NDA Government that the issue was not addressed by the previous governments for past four decades is totally baseless. The previous government of UPA announced OROP last year," said Congress leader and former defence minister A K Antony.
On Saturday afternoon, Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar announced that the government has decided to implement the much awaited OROP scheme, stating that there would be a revision of pension every five years as against the two years demanded by the ex-servicemen.
He also said that the government would also setup a one-member judicial committee to work out details of implementation of the OROP.