Driving Naari Programme launched in Chandigarh
Modi should have given a thought before committing to the brave soldiers of the Country
Chandigarh, August 27: Pleading for the intervention by President Mr Pranab Mukherjee for the implementation of one-rank-one-pension, the Punjab Congress President Mr Partap Singh Bajwa today said the Prime Minister Mr Narendra Modi should deliver or quit.
In a letter to Mr Mukherjee, the PPCC chief said, “Please give the benefit of your sage advice to the prime minister. The time for looking at figures, accounts and planning finances is before a decision is taken and not after. Now is the time for him to make good on his oft-repeated promises and proud boasts so loudly trumpeted from the rooftops. He must deliver the goods or make way for someone better suited than him to take charge of the business of government”.
He appealed to the President to use his good offices as head of the Indian state and Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces to get the government and the Prime Minister to implement One Rank One Pension for veterans of the defence services without any delay.
He said the situation was now critical as thousands of veterans have been peacefully taking part in the relay hunger strike being organized at Jantar Mantar as part of their struggle. Four of them were now on fast unto death. Colonel Pushpinder Singh, one of the hunger strikers was now admitted in the intensive care unit of the Army’s Research and Referral Hospital. The others were only in marginally better shape health-wise. Every day hundreds of supporters and admirers of the gallant defenders of our freedom were thronging the venue of the protests.
He said people of the country were highly agitated especially after the totally insensitive attempt by the Delhi Police acting on the government’s orders to remove the veterans from the scene leading to their being manhandled. He expressed shock at the treatment meted out to the defenders of the nation saying this was utterly shameful. He appealed to the President to intervene before this insensitive, uncaring government allowed a casualty to take place.
Lambasting the government for trying to take refuge behind a smokescreen of ‘technicalities and complications’, he expressed the apprehension that given the nature of the warm relationship and strong bonds between ex-servicemen and serving soldiers, how long before the morale of the latter was hit on seeing the shabby way their grandfathers, fathers, uncles, brothers and erstwhile colleagues were being treated? In the volatile situation that prevailed on our frontiers, India and it’s people could not risk such a state of affairs brought about by a visionless, blinkered, unfeeling government that had failed to care about the promises.
