The Samyukt Kisan Morcha, the umbrella organisation of various farmers’ organisations and ten Central Trade Unions (CTUs), held joint protests against the Agnipath scheme at various locations across the country on Friday. The SKM said civil society organisations and students also joined the protests against “the anti-military, anti-farmer and anti-national scheme.” The SKM also sent a memorandum to President Ram Nath Kovind urging his intervention so that the scheme could be dropped.
The SKM said protest demonstrations were held at district and block headquarters in States such as Delhi, Punjab, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Bihar, West Bengal, Uttarakhand, Tamil Nadu and Chhattisgarh. They urged the President to cancel the Agnipath scheme and restore regular recruitment in the army against 1,25,000 vacancies at present and about 60,000 posts which will become vacant this year. The SKM demanded that an age relaxation of two years should be given to the youth for general recruitment and all false cases against the protesters must be withdrawn and arrested youth should be freed.
The SKM said the Agnipath scheme is a big fraud upon the nation. “Stopping the recruitment process which had started in 2020-21 is playing with the dreams of the youths, and reducing the number of recruits in the Army, reducing the length of service to 4 years, and ending pension is an injustice to all the youth and families who saw the armed forces as a career along with the service of the country,” the SKM said.
