Govt using soldiers as political fodder: Cong

The Congress on Wednesday latched on to a report of a Parliamentary panel headed by BJP veteran B C Khanduri to target the Modi government over the alleged neglect of the Armed forces by making the lowest allocation to the defence ministry in terms of percentage of the GDP since 1962.

The Congress attack came a day after six special forces personnel were killed in a landmine blast carried out by Maoists in Jharkhand.

Congress spokesperson Priyanka Chaturvedi accused the Modi government of compromising on internal security by “failing” to ensure that the Armed forces were provided with the most fundamental resources to perform the grueling duties.

“Is the Modi government using our ‘soldiers’ as ‘political fodder’ – using their sacrifice for garnering votes,” Priyanka asked.

She said, "the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Defence headed by Khanduri had exposed a “shameful state of neglect” towards the requirements of our Armed forces."

Priyanka said the report had noted that only 8% of the equipment with the Armed forces was state-of-the-art and 68% was vintage.

She claimed that in Union Budget 2018-19, the defence ministry got an allocation of just 1.58% of the GDP, lowest allocation since 1962.

“The morale of Armed forces is the lowest due to the step-motherly treatment meted out to them by the BJP government, and constant degradation and down gradation of ranks,” Priyanka alleged.