Criticising Agnipath scheme does not violate poll code: Congress

The Congress on May 24 asserted that its criticism of the Agnipath recruitment scheme for the armed forces did not violate the Model Code of Conduct (MCC) as it allows criticism of other political parties in the context of “their policies, programmes, past records and work”.

The Congress on May 24 asserted that its criticism of the Agnipath recruitment scheme for the armed forces did not violate the Model Code of Conduct (MCC) as it allows criticism of other political parties in the context of “their policies, programmes, past records and work”.

The party’s statement on the issue came just days after the Election Commission wrote to Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge, asking the party’s star campaigners not to talk about the operational matters of the defence forces and not to “politicise” the armed forces.

Addressing a press conference, Congress’ ex-servicemen department chief Col. (retd.) Rohit Chaudhry said Prime Minister Narendra Modi was “taking the support” of the poll panel. “Whenever Modiji gets into trouble, he looks for some support. Earlier, he used to hide behind the defence forces. Now he is taking the support of the Election Commission,” he said.

He said the armed forces are doing an excellent job in protecting the country, and the Congress was only talking about the change in the recruitment policy of the government when it introduced the Agnipath scheme.

“We are challenging the scheme which is not in the interest of the country, the Army and the soldiers,” he added.

The Congress functionary said the Agnipath scheme, which would retain only 25% of the Agniveers after four years, will be scrapped if the INDIA bloc wins the election.