Ex-servicemen at Jantar Mantar on Sunday.(express Photo by: Ravi Kanojia) Ex-servicemen at Jantar Mantar on Sunday.(express Photo by: Ravi Kanojia)

Military veterans on Sunday slammed Prime Minister Narendra Modi for not keeping his poll promise of implementing the One Rank One Pension (OROP) scheme. The ex-servicemen, who protested at Jantar Mantar, are demanding that a date to implement the scheme be announced. While a delegation of 11 ex-servicemen to President Pranab Mukherjee had to return without meeting him, political leaders, too, seemed to be largely unmoved by the stir.

In the agitation, which saw a doctor collecting blood that was used to pen the petition to the President, thousands of ex-servicemen blamed politicians, serving military heads and the the bureaucracy for tardy progress on the implementation of OROP. But, it was the feeling of being let down by PM Modi that dominated the atmosphere.

“Fifteen months ago, when Narendra Modi, then in the run up to the 2014 general elections, promised to implement OROP, ex-servicemen were a vote-bank. Now, no one is talking about the issue. They say there are complications in the definition of OROP. Were things different when he made the promises,” asked Col (retd) M S Ahuja (73), who with two replaced knees drove down from Panchkula for the protest.

The fact that Modi did not refer to the issue at his Mathura rally seemed to have fuelled the anger of the military veterans. “On May 26, it was expected that he would announce something, why did he not,” asked retired Warrant Officer N Singh.

Organisers claimed that nearly 15,000 ex-servicemen from 40-odd organisations participated in the agitation even as similar protests were carried out concurrently at 50 cities across the country. The ex-servicemen will be starting an indefinite relay hunger strike from Monday.

The protesters displayed placards, cartoons and slogans directed towards Modi. A veteran Sikh officer displayed a cartoon showing how a donkey–depicting ex-servicemen– is shown a carrot of OROP by PM Modi in his radio programme Mann Ki Baat.

By 3 pm, nearly 60 speakers had addressed the gathering, blaming governments, political parties and bureaucrats. “It is not about Congress or BJP. The bureaucrats lack the will. They do not want us to get our due. They have convinced the government that there is some problem with calculations regarding OROP formula. Politicians lack the spine to put the bureaucracy in place,” said Group Captain (retd) V K Gandhi, general secretary, Indian Ex Servicemen Movement.

The protesters said no representative from the government had visited the military veterans to deter them from protesting.

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