New Delhi: AAP Rajya Sabha MP Sanjay Singh on Thursday said the JD(U)’s demand for review of Agnipath scheme is “100 per cent correct” and stressed that the scheme should have been withdrawn earlier. Earlier in the day, JD(U) leader K C Tyagi told reporters here that the party has demanded a review of the Agnipath scheme, and will “pursue” the caste census issue. Speaking to PTI Videos, Singh said, “Agniveer is betrayal with Mother India and the Army. The prime minister should have withdrawn it earlier.” “Earlier a jawan was trained for a year but under this scheme (Agnipath), you reduced the training period to six months. Every youth is ready to sacrifice his or her life for the country. But you are weakening the army. This demand from JDU is 100 per cent correct,” the AAP leader added. In June 2022, the government rolled out the Agnipath recruitment scheme for short-term induction of personnel with an aim to bring down the age profile of the three armed services. AllUttar PradeshMaharashtraTamil NaduWest BengalBiharKarnatakaAndhra PradeshTelanganaKeralaMadhya PradeshRajasthanDelhiOther States The scheme provides for recruiting youths between the age bracket of 17-and-half years and 21 for four years with a provision to retain 25 per cent of them for 15 more years.
Tag: K C Tyagi
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Chirag Paswan terms as ‘hypothetical’ speculations of BJP joining hands with Nitish
Amid political uncertainty in Bihar, former Lok Janshakti Party president Chirag Paswan on Friday disclosed that he was “in constant touch with the top BJP leadership” but termed as “hypothetical” the question whether Chief Minister Nitish Kumar would be acceptable to him as a new NDA partner. Paswan, who had come to the Bihar capital on Thursday evening, spoke to journalists at the airport, saying he has “cancelled” engagements in the state to hold deliberations over the “crucial next few days” in Delhi.
“I have been in constant touch with the top BJP leadership. I spoke to them before coming here last evening when I held a meeting of party workers. I am going back to Delhi. I have cancelled my trip to late Karpoori Thakur’s village in Samastipur and to Sitamarhi, which I had been wanting to visit after having paid obeisance at Ayodhya”, he said.
Paswan, who now heads Lok Janshakti Party (Ram Vilas), said his party is a “committed NDA ally in Bihar”. “Therefore, we are keeping a watch on the situation in the state where the next two or three days may be crucial. The BJP, which is the largest constituent of the alliance, is keeping me in the loop. We will be holding more talks in Delhi,” he said.
The young Jamui MP, who is known to have no love lost for Nitish Kumar and whose rebellion during the 2020 assembly polls has been blamed by the ruling JD(U) for its debacle, was also asked whether he would now be comfortable with the Bihar chief minister as an alliance partner.
“These are hypothetical questions which I would not like to answer. There can be no end to such speculations”, said Paswan. He also scoffed at reports in a section of the media speculating that if Kumar made a return to the NDA, Paswan could switch sides and seek an alliance with RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav, the current Deputy CM. “These are baseless reports which erode the credibility of the fourth estate,” fumed Paswan.
Paswan’s comments came amidst a strong buzz that Kumar, a key figure in the opposition bloc INDIA, was now done with the anti-BJP coalition and exploring possibilities with his old ally which he had dumped less than two years ago.
However, neither Kumar’s JD(U) nor the BJP has dropped a clear hint in this direction.
JD(U)’s political advisor and spokesperson K C Tyagi has been asserting that his party saw itself as “the architect of INDIA” and wanted to remain a part of the coalition though developments in West Bengal and Punjab were a cause for concern.
State BJP president Samrat Choudhary, who met Union Home Minister Amit Shah, the party’s principal strategist, in Delhi on Thursday, asserted that the talks centred around Lok Sabha polls.
“Our top leaders like Amit Shah and national president J P Nadda have said, in public, that the doors of BJP were closed. As a party worker, I abide by the stand. Nitish Kumar, to us, is a politician who changes his allies like clothes”, said Choudhary.
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JD (U) to contest polls in Chhattisgarh
JD (U) would contest the Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh assembly elections, party’s national secretary general K C Tyagi told TOI on Tuesday. He said Bihar CM Nitish Kumar would address a public meeting at Banswada in Chhattisgarh on May 30.
Tyagi said like Gujarat, Nagaland and Karnataka, JD(U) would contest the upcoming elections in the three states alone. “We are not a part of NDA outside Bihar,” he clarified. On being asked about the number of seats JD(U) intends to contest, Tyagi said: “Numbers don’t matter. Our motive is to maintain our identity as a socialist party. Accordingly, we will field candidates in those pockets where people follow the Ram Manohar Lohia’s model of socialist movement.”
Incidentally, JD(U) could not win a single seat either in Gujarat or in Karnataka, where it had fielded 15 and 34 candidates respectively. It, however, managed to win one seat in Nagaland where the party had fielded 15 candidates.