Centre has substantially diluted OROP principle: Antony

Says this government is playing politics

Congress leader and former defence minister AK Antony on Sunday accused the Centre of “substantially diluting” the UPA’s one rank, one pension scheme as well doing politics over it.

“Yesterday’s announcement according to me is a substantial dilution of OROP principle. And it is a dilution of the UPA’s announcement, that OROP will be introduced from April 2014. There also this government is playing politics. Because if they accept 1st April 2014, they fear that the credit will go to the UPA. So they made a change to 1st July,” Antony said.

The senior Congress leader said Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who is attacking the Congress, should reflect on how the announcement justifies the promise made in a speech in Rewari before the Parliamentary elections.

Antony said there were great debates in Parliament, in government and political circles after which UPA government accepted the recommendation of the  Parliamentary committee for OROP in toto and set apart Rs 500 crore.

“After that we took a decision to seek more money because we realised after announcement that substantial increase is needed in co-ordination with time frame. A substantial amount is needed for OROP, we must move for additional fund,” he said. Antony said that after this the NDA came to power under Modi and in the first Budget they set aside thousands of crores. "In our first announcement we had announced Rs 500 crore in token and then also we said that whatever money is needed, we will give and we have moved for more money," Antony said.

He added that before becoming Prime Minister, Modi had said in Rewari that he will implement OROP in toto and said he would implement it in 100 days.

Another senior Congress leader PC Chako also claimed that the Prime Minister was misleading not only the veterans and the ex-jawans, but the whole country.

"Because the PM should know that it was during the UPA when Antony was the defence minister, we have taken the decision, we have announced the decision, we have made that provision,” Chacko said. "In the 2014 Budget, Chidambaram has provided a token provision for implementing this. That means they cannot take credit for implementing OROP."