Former Union Minister, Senior Congress Leader P. Chidambaram said on May 23 that the Election Commission (EC) of India was “egregiously wrong” for asking his party not to politicize the Agnipath scheme and asserting that it is an opposition party’s prerogative to criticize government policies.
On May 22, the EC rebuked the ruling BJP as well as rival Congress and advised them against using caste, community, language or religious sentiment during the campaigns.
The Congress also received directives from EC to desist from politicizing the armed forces and making divisive statements about their socio-economic composition. The commission was reacting to comments made by top Congress leaders on this scheme called Agnipath.
Mr. Chidambaram wrote in a post on X that the ECI is wrong in telling congress not to “politicise” Agnipath.
“What does ‘politicise’ mean? Does ECI mean ‘criticise’? Agniveer is a policy of government: Government scheme. It is the right of any opposition political party to criticise a policy of government and declare that if voted into power it will scrap off our system,” explained former Union Minister.
“’Agniveer’ splits soldiers into two kinds who fight together – this is unfair and bad. ‘Agniveer’ takes a young man for only four years without giving him a job or pension – this is bad also,” said leader of Congress Party.
“Agniveer was opposed by Army but still the army had imposed upon it by Government which means that Agniveer should be scrapped” added he
Egregiously wrong direction was given by ECI to Congress party and as citizen it’s my right to say ECI was egregiously wrong, stated Mr. Chidambaram.
