The OROP announcement today triggered a war of words with the Congress accusing the Modi government of "substantially diluting" its provisions and the BJP hitting back, slamming the opposition party of playing a "joke" on ex-servicemen when it was in power.
Former Defence Minister A K Antony charged the government with doing politics over 'One Rank One Pension' (OROP) and "betraying" the veterans.
On the move to keep out of OROP those ex-servicemen who had opted for VRS, he said it was sad because 90 per cent of service personnel retire between 35 to 40 years of age, losing lakhs of rupees.
"There is no comparision of those in Defence forces with those in other services", he told reporters here.
Attacking Congress, BJP President Amit Shah said the pension of ex-servicemen was decreased by its government in the 70s and the allocation of only Rs 500 crore was made for OROP by the previous UPA government.
"In 1973 their pension was reduced from 70 per cent to 50 per cent (of salary) and the demand for OROP has been hanging fire since then... The previous Congress government in its last moments made an allocation of Rs 500 crore for it and this was a joke played on ex-servicemen," Shah said, noting that an additional expenditure of Rs 9,000-10,000 crore annually will go towards it.
Former Union Minister Kapil Sibal said Congress was against the provision of revision of pension every five years announced by the government. He also faulted it for not adhering to the equalisation principle.
Antony took exception to Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar's remarks that OROP was being implemented for the first time in four decades by his government.
"The Defence Minister is doing politics," he said insisting that UPA government had announced acceptance of OROP last year and had even provided a token amount of Rs 500 crores and constituted an expert committee.
Asked whether government's decision has opened up a Pandora's box as OROP announcement would lead to demands from other central security forces, Sibal said that the party would react only after the Prime Minister makes his stand clear in the matter.
