Targeting the Centre over Agniveer scheme, former Congress president Rahul Gandhi on Friday said that this army recruitment scheme has ruined the future of youth.

Addressing a public meeting at Panipat as a part of his Bharat Jodo Yatra, Gandhi said: “Army, Air Force and Navy used to make three promises to the youth. First of all, one day may come that you will have to fight for India and maybe you will have to make the supreme sacrifice by giving up your life for the nation, but the army used to assure that it would give them the best training and would not send them to fight without training.”

“The second promise is that they will get 15 years of service and if they get hurt even a little, we will protect them. The third promise was to give pension and ex-serviceman status on returning to the village. Be it a city or a village, the people of India honoured them, and said the martyr gave his life, his blood and his dreams to the country,” the Congress leader said.

“But now all these promises have been broken by the Agniveer Yojana. First there was talk of recruiting only 40,000 instead of 80 thousand, then instead of 15 years of service, four years of service and in that also after four years, 75 per cent will no longer be in service, only 25 per cent will be retained. Forget the training you used to get earlier, you will get only six months training,” he said, comparing the changed recruitment and service conditions.

“BJP and Narendra Modi have broken all these promises. When we raise this issue, the BJP says we are speaking against the Army.All the youth are saying that their future has been ruined. What Agniveer scheme for the armed forces, three black farm laws were for the farmers. But when the farmers stood up, Prime Minister Modi said that I made a mistake. Seven hundred farmers were martyred, it took one year to recognize the mistake,” Gandhi quipped.

Gandhi said that 90 per cent profit of all the companies of India is in the hands of only 20 companies. “This is the reality of Narendra Modi’s India,” he said, adding that two Indias exist today, one India is of farmers, labourers, small shopkeepers, unemployed youth in which crores of people live. The other India, he said, belongs to the richest 200-300 people.