Shinzo Abe killing points to possible pitfalls of Agnipath scheme: TMC

Kolkata: The Trinamool Congress has cautioned the Central government against the Agnipath scheme, pointing to the fact that Japan’s former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was assassinated by a short-service ex-serviceman. The party claimed that the killing underlined the possible pitfalls of the controversial defence recruitment programme.

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The state BJP, however, rejected the apprehension saying no Indian ex-servicemen had ever been involved in any such incident. "The death of Abe at the hands of an ex-serviceman has only validated the fears of the people over the Agnipath scheme," the TMC’s mouthpiece ‘Jago Bangla’ (Wake up, Bengal) said in an article on Saturday.

The attacker lost his job in the Japanese Maritime Self-Defence Force after three years of service and he was not getting any pension, it claimed. Agniveers too would not get any pension after their four-year service period is over, the article pointed out.

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"The BJP is playing with fire in the name of Agnipath scheme…. We have seen what has happened in Japan. An ex-serviceman killed the former Prime Minister," TMC spokesperson Kunal Ghosh said on Sunday. The BJP said that such apprehensions are baseless.

"We have never heard of any such incident in which an ex-serviceman of our country is involved. The TMC is just trying to politicise the matter," state BJP spokesperson Samik Samik Bhattacharya said.