The Punjab Assembly on Thursday passed a resolution against the Center’s Agnipath defense recruitment program. Two BJP lawmakers Ashwani Sharma and Jangi Lal Mahajan opposed the resolution. The resolution was moved in the House by Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann.
Mann took part in the discussion of the resolution and said he will soon discuss the issue of the Agnipath plan with the prime minister and the home secretary of the Union.
Mann was strongly opposed to Agnipath, saying that this plan was against the youth of the country. Opposition and Congress legislator Partap Singh Bajwa demanded that the Agnipath scheme be repealed. Akali MLA Manpreet Singh Ayali supported the resolution and demanded that the scheme be rolled back. According to the resolution, the House recommends that the state government take the matter up with the Union government to immediately reverse the Agnipath scheme.
“The unilateral announcement of the Agnipath plan by the Indian government has sparked widespread reactions across all states, including Punjab,” Mann said while reading the resolution. The Punjab Vidhan Sabha strongly believes that the scheme whereby young people will only be employed for a period of four years and kept only up to 25 percent is not in the interest of national security or the youth of this country.
“This policy is likely to lead to discontent among the youth who want to serve the nation’s armed forces for their entire lives,” Mann said. It should be emphasized that more than one lakh soldiers from Punjab serve in the nation’s armed forces and many of them make the highest sacrifice of their lives on the borders of the country every year, he said. “The youth of Punjab regard serving in the Indian Armed Forces as a matter of pride and honor and are known for their bravery and bravery.
“This plan has crushed the dreams of many Punjab youth who aspired to join the armed forces as regular soldiers,” Mann said. The plan also tends to weaken the long-standing spirit of the armed forces, Mann said as he moved the resolution.
Protests had erupted in several parts of the country after the Center unveiled the Agnipath plan to recruit young people between the ages of 17 and a half and 21 into the army, navy and air force, largely on a four-year contractual basis. It later relaxed the age limit for this year’s recruitment to 23 years. Mann had said in the Assembly on Tuesday that his government will table a resolution against the Agnipath plan, claiming that the Center’s military recruiting initiative will destroy the basic fabric of the Indian military. Earlier, he endorsed opposition leader Partap Singh Bajwa’s suggestion to table a resolution against the scheme.
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