After farmers, youth suffering from govt decisions: Tikait on Agnipath

The farmers of the country suffered for 13 months due to the "wrong policies" of the BJP-led Centre and now, youngsters are facing the results of a "wrong decision", farmer leader Rakesh Tikait said on Thursday, wading into the row over the "Agnipath" scheme for recruitment into the armed forces.

The national spokesperson of the Bharatiya Kisan Union (BKU) and a prominent face of the 2020-21 farmers' stir in Delhi, took to social media to lodge his protest against the Centre's new step for contractual recruitment into the armed forces.

"The farmers of the country have suffered for 13 months due to the government's wrong policies and today, the youngsters of the country are facing the consequences of a wrong decision. The government should know that those getting into the armed forces are also sons of farmers. We will fight till our last breath for the youngsters of the country and our children," Tikait said in a tweet in Hindi.

He also shared a picture along with the tweet that claimed that a young man from Haryana's Rohtak, who was preparing for recruitment into the armed forces for four years, ended his life after the government announced the "Agnipath" scheme.

Tikait's remarks came on a day when violent protests erupted in several parts of north India, including Uttar Pradesh and Haryana, over the Centre's new announcement.

The Centre unveiled the Agnipath scheme on Tuesday for the recruitment of soldiers in the Army, the Navy and the Air Force, largely on a four-year short-term contractual basis, in a major overhaul of the decades-old selection process.

Under the scheme, youngsters between the ages of 17 and a half and 21 years will be inducted into the three services. After the completion of the four-year tenure, the scheme provides for retaining 25 per cent of the recruits for regular service.

The recruits would also get a corpus fund upon being relieved from the service but would not be entitled to post-retirement benefits such as pension like regular soldiers.