Will scrap 'Agnipath', revert to old recruitment system if voted to power: Congress
New Delhi, Feb 26: Stepping up its attack on the Union government over the "Agnipath" military recruitment scheme, the Congress alleged on Monday that "gross injustice" was done to youngsters and demanded that those who had cleared the old recruitment process but were not inducted be immediately given jobs.
The opposition party asserted that it would revert to the old recruitment system if voted to power at the Centre.
Congress chief Mallikarjun Kharge wrote to President Droupadi Murmu, highlighting the "gross injustice" done to the youngsters seeking regular employment in the armed forces due to the "Agnipath" scheme, and urged her to ensure justice for them.
The future of nearly two lakh young men and women has become uncertain due to the scrapping of the regular recruitment process in the armed forces, Kharge said in his letter to the president, who is the supreme commander of the armed forces.
"There are many well-known issues with the Agnipath scheme. Former Chief of Army Staff General M M Naravane has written that the Army was 'taken by surprise' by Agnipath and that 'for the Navy and Air Force, it came like a bolt from the blue'," he said.
"Furthermore, the scheme is discriminatory among our jawans by creating parallfel cadres of soldiers who are expected to work on similar tasks, but with very different emoluments, benefits and prospects. The majority of Agniveers will be released into an uncertain job market after four years of service, which some have argued could affect social stability," Kharge said.
Tagging Kharge's letter, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi said on X, "We are with the military candidates, who are full of patriotism and bravery, in the fight for justice."
Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra said with the spirit of patriotism and service in mind, lakhs of youngsters across the country work hard day and night.
"Whether it is cold, hot or rainy, they wake up early in the morning and practise running. They think that they will join the Army, serve the country and also get employment. The BJP government crushed the dreams of lakhs of promising youth of the country by bringing Agnivir Yojana," she said in a post on X.
"Lakhs of posts are vacant, crores of youth are unemployed -- this is Modi's guarantee," she added.
Addressing a press conference at the AICC headquarters here, Congress general secretary Sachin Pilot said there was no demand for such a scheme.
"In the long term, this scheme will not benefit anybody except saving some money for the government of India. We in the Congress party feel that we should go back to the old recruitment system," Pilot said.
If some changes are to be introduced to modernise the armed forces, that is very much possible in the current setup, but to completely eradicate the old system is not right, he added.
"It is closing avenues of employment. I think it has been done in an ad-hoc fashion, without much thought to the future prospects of how the Army would function. We in the Congress believe that the Agnipath programme is not a positive development and we will certainly go back to the old recruitment system when people vote us back," Pilot said, with party leaders Pawan Khera and Deepender Hooda by his side.
"We want to say that if this government can spend Rs 4,100 crore on G-20, Rs 8,400 crore for the Prime Minister's airplane, Rs 20,000 crore for the Central Vista Project and Rs 6,500 crore every year for government advertisements, then I believe that we should not play with our entire recruitment process just to save money, this is for the future, for our security. This can pose a challenge somewhere to the integrity and security of India," Pilot said.
Pilot said India has one of the finest fighting forces in the world and its defence forces are second to none.
"But their valour, their strength and their dedication to the nation should be regarded and respected for future generations and we all feel that by compromising on the process of recruitment of the armed forces, it may not augur well for our future," he said.
Hooda said several military recruitment processes were completed during and before the outbreak of COVID-19 and only joining was left. But after the introduction of the "Agnipath" scheme, these youngsters selected by the government were not given joining letters.
"These youngsters met (former Congress chief) Rahul Gandhi and shared their pain. Since then, Rahulji has been continuously raising his voice," he said.
On whose demand did the Narendra Modi government bring the "Agnipath Yojana", Hooda asked.
"Neither the Army nor the youngsters joining the Army had put forward the demand for the scheme," he said.
"When we asked what will the Agniveers do after four years of service, BJP leader Kailash Vijayvargiya had said those youngsters will be given the job of a watchman in the BJP office. I want to tell the BJP that the youngsters of the country join the Army with a sense of patriotism and not with a sense of becoming a watchman outside the BJP office," Hooda said.
Hooda accused the BJP of playing politics over the defence forces of the country.
In his letter to the president, Kharge said, "Our youth cannot be allowed to suffer in this manner. I appeal to you to ensure that justice is done."
The "Agnipath" scheme provides for recruiting youngsters in the age bracket of 17 years and a half to 21 years for a four-year period, with a provision to retain 25 per cent of them for 15 more years.
केंद्र सरकार ने अग्निपथ योजना लाकर युवाओं के सपनों को तोड़ने का काम किया है।
— Sachin Pilot (@SachinPilot) February 26, 2024
एक तरफ केंद्र सरकार कहती है कि हम डिफेंस सेक्टर में आत्मनिर्भर बने हैं, एक्सपोर्ट से पैसा कमा रहे हैं। फिर भी यह योजना मूलतः पैसा बचाने के लिए शुरू की गई।
ऐसे में सबसे जरूरी यह है कि हमारे शूरवीर… pic.twitter.com/tRjGxBtHRr
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Modi govt rattled by Rahul’s Great Nicobar visit; project concerns need Parliament debate: Cong
New Delhi (PTI): The Congress on Sunday flagged in detail concerns related to ecology, tribal rights, transparency and security, over the Great Nicobar project, and asserted that these considerations must be debated in a parliamentary forum.
The opposition party claimed that the Modi government is "rattled" and in damage control mode after Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi's visit to Great Nicobar last week.
In a statement, Congress general secretary in-charge communications Jairam Ramesh said, "The Modi Government, clearly in damage control mode after the hugely impactful visit of the Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha, Rahul Gandhi, to Great Nicobar on April 28 2026, issued a press note on the Great Nicobar Island Development Project three days later."
This press note does not address any of the serious concerns that have been raised on it by local affected communities, environmentalists, anthropologists, academics, civil society experts and other professionals, Ramesh said.
"These concerns had already been conveyed in detail by me to the Union Minister of Environment, Forests & Climate Change on September 10, 2024 and in a follow-up on September 27, 2024," the former environment minister said.
During his visit to Great Nicobar, Gandhi last week alleged that the Great Nicobar project at Campbell Bay in Andaman and Nicobar Islands was "one of the biggest scams and gravest crimes against the natural and tribal heritage of the country".
The government on May 1 released a detailed statement with answers to FAQs (frequently asked questions).
"The Great Nicobar Project is a strategic initiative to strengthen India's presence in the Andaman Sea. It seeks to balance port-led growth with calibrated environmental safeguards. Protection of indigenous communities remains central to its planning," the government statement had said.
"The project combines strategic, economic, and ecological priorities. This ensures that development is sustainable, inclusive, and aligned with national interests," it had said.
In his four-page detailed statement, Ramesh spelt out the key concerns over the Great Nicobar project.
Flagging ecological concerns, Ramesh said the Great Nicobar is unique and distinctly different from all other islands in the Andaman and Nicobar group.
"The Government's claim that only 1.82% of the total land of the island group is being used for the project is irrelevant and misleading. It ignores the ecological and biological richness of the Great Nicobar ecosystem, which is unique both in the island group and in the world," he said.
"Galathea Bay, the site of the port, is unequivocally a Coastal Regulation Zone (CRZ) is a site where port construction is not allowed. As per records of the Zoological Survey of India, Galathea Bay is home to more than 20,000 coral colonies, a key marker of a CRZ-1a categorisation. Similarly, the beach here is the most important nesting site of the Giant Leatherback turtle in the Northern Indian Ocean," Ramesh said.
The recently concluded turtle nesting season saw record turtle nesting at Galathea Bay, he pointed out.
Ramesh alleged that institutions like the Wildlife Institute of India (WII) and Zoological Survey of India (ZSI) were literally coerced to play a key role in the environmental clearance and related process for the project.
"These very institutions have now been awarded projects for biodiversity research and monitoring in Great Nicobar. There is a clear conflict of interest here," he argued.
In addition, a couple of reputed and independent-minded institutions that have been very critical of the project have been blacklisted by the Modi government, he said.
Similar is the case with the high-powered committee (HPC) constituted by the National Green Tribunal (NGT) in the matter of the challenge to the project's environmental clearance granted, he said.
All the HPC's members either represented the project proponents or agencies which granted the clearances, Ramesh said.
He said the proposal for compensatory afforestation in Haryana is a travesty of ecological principles.
Flagging tribal rights concerns, Ramesh said the Nicobarese Tribal community has expressed concerns multiple times about the project and its impact on their forests, rights, and way of life.
"In November 2022, they withdrew the NoC they had granted for forest diversion saying that they were rushed to sign by concealing the extent of tribal areas to be affected by the project. Representatives of the Nicobarese community also stated in a recent press conference that they were being forced to voluntarily surrender their land for the project," he pointed out.
The claims stand even more exposed in the matter of the Shompen, a Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Group (PVTG), that lives a life of hunting and gathering in the deep forests of Great Nicobar, Ramesh said.
The Shompen are a primarily uncontacted community and there are no non-Shompen speakers of their language, he pointed out.
"It is not clear then how the project authorities have taken their informed consent, which is both ethically appropriate and legally mandated," Ramesh said.
Pointing out that government release has claimed that the airport in Great Nicobar will eventually handle 10 million passengers annually, Ramesh said this appears prima facie to be a huge over-estimation given that the current airport at Port Blair handles 1.8 million passengers annually.
"The deliberations of the Forest Advisory Committee for granting the project's forest clearance were not made public. The report submitted by the High-Powered Committee that examined the clearance granted to the project was kept confidential. The field report prepared by the National Centre for Sustainable Coastal Management (NCSCM) that pronounced the status of the site of the port from CRZ-1A to CRZ-1B overnight, remains confidential," he pointed out.
Ramesh also flagged security concerns about the project, saying no less a person than the courageous former Chief of Naval Staff Admiral Arun Prakash (Retd) himself has argued in an article that "the security capabilities of ANC (Andaman & Nicobar Command) need to be addressed separately and must have no linkage with the developments contemplated for GNI (Great Nicobar Island)."
"There is thus no need to link India's legitimate security imperatives with the so-called 'development project' - complete with a township, high-end tourist infrastructure, and large transshipment terminal - that the Modi Government is intent on bulldozing through and on which it is now trying to muzzle genuine and much-needed debate hiding behind "security considerations", he said.
"These considerations must, at the very least, be discussed and debated in a Parliamentary forum," Ramesh said.
