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HP Polls| Mankotia wants Centre to review Agnipath
The newly inducted BJP leader held that it takes at least 10 years to make a soldier combat ready and the four-year time under the scheme is too less.
Former Congress minister Vijai Singh Mankotia, who recently joined the BJP, on Friday said that despite him switching parties, he stood firm on his demand that the Centre review the Agnipath Scheme.
Mankotia, who was addressing a press conference in Dharamshala, said, “Veterans agree that it takes at least 10 years to make a soldier combat ready.Four years is too little time. We have already submitted a proposal to the Centre through the Indian Ex-Services League, of which I am part of the national executive, to review the scheme.”
He, however, said that Agnipath, the contractual recruitment scheme for the armed forces, would not be an issue in the state assembly elections. “We had thought that the recruitment rallies would draw poor response, but a huge number of youngsters are still eager to join the army,” he said.
On the allegations he had levelled against the BJP’s Shahpur candidate Sarveen Chaudhary, Mankotia said that the latter had filed a defamation case against him in the high court. “The matter is sub-judice and the high court has directed me not to speak on the issue so I cannot comment,” said Mankotia, a former five-term MLA from Shahpur.
Mankotia, however, said that since he was in BJP now, he will campaign for the party’s candidate. Mankotia and Chaudhary, who have contested five elections against each other, also met at the former’s house on Thursday evening.
On Chief minister Jai Ram Thakur, whom Mankotia has previously soundly criticised, he said, “If BJP wants him to be CM again, as a party worker, I will support him.”
Launching a scathing attack on his former party, Mankotia said the Congress had deviated from its principles and there had been a decline in moral values.“From Centre to state, its leaders are either in jail or on bail,” said Mankotia, adding that he was delighted to be in the BJP and finally felt that he was in good company.
The former ministers said that BJP national president JP Nadda had invited him to his home on Diwali and it was heartening to see that the etiquette in politics, which seemed extinct, was still alive.
