Congress distances itself from MP Manish Tewari's views favouring Agnipath

The Congress on Wednesday distanced itself from party MP Manish Tewari’s defence of the controversial ‘Agnipath’ military recruitment scheme, saying his views were “entirely his own” and it firmly believes that the government's decision is “anti-national security and anti-youth” that was “bulldozed through without discussion”.

Of late, the relationship between the Congress and Tewari were not at its best, especially after the party went ahead with removing Captain Amarinder Singh as the Punjab Chief Minister. He was also a signatory of a controversial letter written by 23 senior Congress leaders asking party chief Sonia Gandhi to bring clarity on the leadership issue.

Congress’ comment came as Tewari wrote in an article in The Indian Express that the scheme should be “contextualised in the backdrop of the larger canvas of defence reforms that include the appointment of a CDS (Chief of Defence Staff), a reorganisation of the armed forces into theatre commands to promote jointness and synergy”.

He also went on to say that Agnipath scheme, through which youth between 17.5 years and 21 years are recruited for a 4-year period and only 25 per cent absorbed for longer service, would help in “right sizing the armed forces provided it gets dovetailed into the imperatives of fifth generation warfare”.

Also read: Bihar's Agnipath apprehensions: Fear of deep socioeconomic impact, marriage concerns for retirees

Congress chief spokesperson Jairam Ramesh responded on Twitter, “Manish Tewari, Congress MP, has written an article on Agnipath. While Congress is the only democratic party, it must be said his views are entirely his own and not of the party, which firmly believes Agnipath is anti-national security and anti-youth, bulldozed through without discussion.”

Tewari retorted on Twitter, “the tagline of the article does say - The views are personal. I wish Jairam Ramesh-ji would have read it right till the very end.”

Congress has been on warpath with the government over the scheme, calling it “penny wise, security foolish” and holding ‘satyagrahas’ and demonstrations across the country in solidarity with youth who were protesting against the contractualisation of military jobs.

Tewari has been a supporter of the Angipath scheme from the beginning and had appeared on a TV channel explaining why it was good for the military, hours after senior leaders P Chidambaram, Ajay Maken and Sachin Pilot held a press conference to spell out Congress’ opposition to the scheme on June 16.

He had entered into a Twitter spat with party MP Saptagiri Ulaka, who had then questioned his stand.

Ulaka, a Lok Sabha MP from Odisha's Koraput, then took exception to the channel describing him as Congress MP as the party had already clarified "responsible people".

"With due respect, instead of Congress' @ManishTewari mentioned in the tweet below, just @ManishTewari would have sufficed in this context. Clearly our stand on #AgnipathScheme is different and has already been communicated by people responsible," he tweeted.

To this Tewari had retorted, “ "dear @saptagiriulaka-ji, you are a valued colleague in Lok Sabha. However, May I respectfully point out that when you may have been running around in your knickers my dear friend I was actively working for Congress. I would request you to kindly refrain from these snide tweets." Ulaka is 43 years old while Tiwari is 56.