Farmers’ organisations have also come out in open to protest against the Agnipath scheme. Describing the plan as anti-military and anti-farmer, farmer organisations, trade unions, social organisations and student organisations are opposing it. Farmer leaders said that the army job is linked to the respect and economic power of lakhs of farmer families.
Farmers' organisations have put forward some demands while giving a memorandum to the President of India. In these, there has been a demand to completely cancel the Agnipath scheme immediately. At present, regular recruitment should be restored to fill 1 lakh 25 thousand posts in the army. This year again about 60,000 posts are becoming vacant, they should be filled.
Thousands of youths have become over-aged due to non-recruitment in the army for the last two years, so they should be given age relaxation of two years. The condition of giving affidavit for the same recruitment should be removed. Farmer leaders said that all false cases registered against youths opposing the Agnipath scheme should be withdrawn and those arrested youths should be released.
The United Kisan Morcha termed the Agnipath scheme as a big hoax for the country as well as the youth who want to join the armed forces and the farmer families of the country. Farmers protested against the scheme in Delhi, Madhya Pradesh, Punjab, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, West Bengal, Uttarakhand and Tamil Nadu.
The United Kisan Morcha officials said that that the central government did not follow any minimum procedure before implementing such huge and far-reaching changes. The new recruitment process should have started somewhere as a pilot project. The government should have consulted the interested youth, serving jawans and officers, and the general public, before implementing the scheme. Most of the soldiers in the country come from peasant families.