The BJP national executive on Saturday, July 2, lauded the Agnipath military recruitment scheme, which has been panned by the Opposition, and the government's announcement of providing 10 lakh jobs in the next 18 months. Briefing reporters after the party passed a resolution on the economy and "Garib Kalyan Sankalp" (resolve for the poor's welfare), Union Minister Dharmendra Pradhan claimed that Prime Minister Narendra Modi's work in this regard has become a "global model".
He also dismissed the Opposition's allegations about the job crisis while replying to a question and said the last Union budget had made the highest-ever allocation for public spending and the government did the highest-ever capital spending during the COVID-19 pandemic. All of this is linked to job creation, he said. “If there was an acute crisis, then social harmony would have been hit,” he said, asserting that the government has created jobs and taken care of the poor.
Defence Minister Rajnath Singh proposed the resolution while his Cabinet colleague Piyush Goyal and Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar seconded it. Hailing the Modi government's governance model, Pradhan described the government as a "reformist and decisive government", which inherited a policy paralysis government.
To questions about inflation and the continued weakening of the rupee against the US dollar, Pradhan said that the unprecedented crisis was not limited to India with many leading economies suffering from high inflation. The pandemic disrupted the entire world, with global commodity prices sky-rocketing, he said. He also cited the war in Ukraine to say that India cannot be seen in isolation. India's economy is growing at a rate of more than 8%, he said, asserting that the country has become a hotspot of global investment.
Last month, the government announced the Agnipath scheme, under which youths between the ages of 17-and-a-half and 21 years would be inducted into the armed forces for a four-year tenure, while 25 % of them will be subsequently inducted for regular service. Disappointment over the scheme had triggered widespread protests, arson and violence in many states.
Watch: Agnipath protests are a sign of India’s unemployment crisis | Let Me Explain