Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Monday said that the Centre had launched the Agniveer scheme with an eye on the 2024 general elections and asked New Delhi to extend the retirement age of the new Agniveer recruits to 65 years.
“The BJP is concerned about its own electoral game plans … its eyes are on the 2024 elections … so it has created a half-baked scheme like Agniveer where young people will be recruited for only four years … has anyone heard about a service tenure as short as that?” Banerjee said adding “In the name of the Army recruits the BJP is trying to create its own armed cadre base.”
“We in our State always keep the concern of the youth in mind while taking such schemes … this is because my motto is to create more employment for the youth … but here what the young people who will retire --- even before they grow up --- after four years do … they will again be jobless trained in arms,” the Chief Minister told a meeting in Burdwan.
Saying that it was not advisable to leave unemployed youth trained in arms to fend for themselves, Banerjee said instead of “giving arms into the hands of the youth,” the “Government should consider extending the retirement age of the Agniveers to 65 years… it is not fare to train the youth for four months and then retire them after four years.”
Banerjee’s remarks came days after widespread protests broke out all over the country in the wake of the Government’s declaration of Agniveer scheme.
In an apparent reference to the Maharashtra political turmoil the Chief Minister attacked the BJP for using the central agencies against the Opposition parties. “They (BJP) want to devour everything … they do not and cannot tolerate opposition which is why they are sending the ED and CBI to the houses of the Opposition leaders who dare speak against them … this vendetta politics is being resorted to only against the opposition parties whereas their own leaders are left off.”
Banerjee’s comments came at a time when hundreds of Trinamool Congress workers led by leaders like Babul Supriyo, Kunal Ghosh and Sayani Ghosh staged sit-in agitation in front of the CGO complex in Kolkata.
They demanded arrest of Bengal Opposition Leader Suvendu Adhikari for his alleged involvement in the Sharada chit fund and Narada payoff scams where he was seen accepting cash on camera.
“I left the BJP … and I dare the Centre to touch me with the agencies … they cannot but my hands are clean … but what about Suvendu Adhikari who was caught on camera accepting cash … though his name figures in the FIR he has been left alone because he has joined the washing machine called BJP.”
The TMC staged a number of rallies in Bengal after a letter from Sudipto Sen —the prime accused in the Sharada scam — was leaked. The letter alleged how Adhikari repeatedly blackmailed him and extorted money from him in the name of saving him from the SEBI and ED. Adhikari, then a Bengal minister, was a powerful TMC leader. He joined the BJP just ahead of the 2021 Assembly elections in which the BJP suffered a humiliating defeat.
The TMC’s protests intensified days after the ED and CBI questioned Rujira Narula Banerjee — the wife of TMC MP and national secretary and Mamata Banerjee’s nephew Abhishek Banerjee — regarding a money laundering case. Several crores had been found in a bank account allegedly related to her in a Thailand bank.