THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The CPM central committee that met online on Saturday resolved to render all-out support to the call for the withdrawal of the Agnipath scheme announced by the Union government. The central committee meeting concluded that the BJP government’s move to entice the youth by projecting Agnipath as a panacea for unemployment has backfired, at least in the initial phase.
The committee meeting originally scheduled as a conventional meeting in New Delhi for two days was cut short into a single-day online meeting. Chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan, who is not attending public functions for a couple of days on the account of health issues, did not participate in the central committee meeting as well.
The meeting, said sources, has identified the Agnipath project as a veiled attempt to strengthen the RSS and create an Israeli model army, imbued with toxic nationalistic feelings. The move, the central committee members concurred also as a ploy to cut down the defence budget. Though the Union government has not specifically said the conventional army recruitment drive would be shelved, the Agnipath scheme would eventually become the lone mode of recruitment to the armed forces.
The central committee, it is learnt, has not discussed the prevailing political commotion in Kerala following the fresh set of allegations heaped on the chief minister, his family members and former colleagues by gold smuggling accused Swapna Suresh. “There was not even a mention of the Kerala situation. The central committee members collectively share the feeling that there was nothing new in the statements made by the accused in the case. The opposition was only trying to create a political uproar over these statements, and it could hardly snowball into a political crisis. In this background, the central committee did not discuss the Kerala issues,” sources said.
The central committee also decided to go ahead with the efforts to reach a consensus among opposition parties to zero in on a candidate to be fielded in the upcoming election to choose a new President of the country.
