#agnipathscheme

Unveiling BJP’s Border Blunders: Naravane’s “Censored” Memoir

Posted on 11th February, 2026 (GMT 18:08 hrs) ABSTRACT The review examines the “unpublished” (?) book Four Stars of Destiny: An Autobiography by General M.M. Naravane (retd.), former Chief of the Indian Army (2019–2022), in comparative dialogue with three major critical interventions on contemporary Indian state power: the BBC documentary India: The Modi Question, Rakesh Sharma’s Final Solution…

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s claim on the Agnipath scheme while paying tribute to martyrs on Kargil Vijay Diwas was strongly criticised by party  leaders

Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge , and other party leaders accused the prime minister of indulging in “petty politics” over the Agnipath issue and said the prime minister’s remarks that his government implemented the scheme at the behest of the Army was a “blatant lie”.

“It is very unfortunate and deplorable that Prime Minister Narendra Modi ji is doing petty politics even on occasions like paying tribute to martyrs on Kargil Vijay Diwas. No Prime Minister has ever done this before,” Kharge said.

“Modi ji is saying that his government implemented the Agnipath scheme at the behest of the Army. This is a blatant lie and an unforgivable insult to our valiant armed forces. Modi ji, it is you who is spreading lies!” he said in a post on X. Asserting that many retired officers had strongly criticised the scheme, the Congress chief said the Agnipath scheme was endangering national security and the aspirations of the rural youth.

Senior Congress leader Shashi Tharoor, Told ANI outside Parliament, “The professional reputation of the Indian Army is extremely high around the world. It’s considered one of the most professional armies in the world and maintaining that professionalism is in the interest of the entire nation. When you create a situation where soldiers can be trained for 6 months and serve for 3-4 years, you are diluting the quality of training and professional opportunities available to the Indian Army. I believe it is deeply damaging, the only rationale for it, is indeed to save money on the pension and therefore I think that the Congress stands justified in its insistence that we will scrap the scheme when we come to power.”

Jairam Ramesh Congress General Secretary in charge of Communications wrote on X

Senior Congress Leader and four-time Lok Sabha MP from Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala, Shashi Tharoor called the Union Budget 2024-25, presented as “underwhelming” and said that there was no mention of key issues facing the common man.

Tharoor welcomed the budget proposal to abolish the angel tax and claimed that he recommended the same to former Finance Minister Arun Jaitley five years ago.

“It is an underwhelming budget. I didn’t hear anything about the key issues facing the common man. There is no mention of MNREGA, and insufficient mention of steps taken to improve the income of a common person,” Tharoor told ANI on Tuesday.

Senior Congress leader and former Finance Minister P Chidambaram said Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman has “virtually adopted” the ideas underlying his party’s proposals on Employment-linked Incentive (ELI) scheme, apprenticeship scheme with an allowance to the apprentice, and on the abolition of Angel Tax.

“I wish she had adopted many more ideas from the Congress’ manifesto (for the Lok Sabha polls),” the former Union finance minister said at a press conference at the AICC headquarters on the Union Budget as reported by PTI . Unemployment is the “biggest challenge facing country” and the response of the government is “too little and will have only little impact on the grave situation”, he said. Chidambaram also said that nothing in the Budget Speech “gives us the confidence that the government will seriously tackle the issue of inflation”.

The government, he alleged, also seems to be “blissfully ignorant” of its own statistics that wages have stagnated in the last six years.

Senior Congress leader and former Finance Minister P Chidambaram has said the Election Commission was “egregiously wrong” in directing his party not to ‘politicise’ the Agnipath scheme, asserting that it is the right of an Opposition party to criticise a policy of the government.

The Election Commission had earlier came down heavily on the ruling BJP and opposition Congress, asking them to desist from campaigning along caste, community, language, and religious lines.

The EC also asked the Congress not to politicise defence forces and make potentially divisive statements regarding the socio-economic composition of the armed forces. The Commission was referring to remarks made by top Congress leaders on the Agnipath scheme.

In a post on X, Chidambaram said the ECI is wrong in directing the Congress party not to ‘politicise’ the Agnipath scheme.

“What does ‘politicize’ mean? Does the ECI mean ‘criticise’? Agniveer is a scheme, a product of the policy of the government. It is the right of an Opposition political party to criticise a policy of the government and declare that, if voted to power, the scheme will be scrapped,” the former Union minister said.

‘Agniveer’ creates two categories of soldiers who fight together, and that is wrong, Chidambaram said.

‘Agniveer’ employs a young man for for four years and throws him out without a job and without a pension, and that is wrong, he said.

“Agniveer was opposed by the Army, yet the government thrust the scheme upon the Army, and that is wrong. Hence, the Agniveer scheme must be scrapped,” he said.