Chairman of the Indian Ex-Servicemen Movement, Major General (retd) Satvir Singh said, “Defence minister Manohar Parrikar told us he will meet the PM on August 23 or 24”.
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“There is no plan to burn our medals”, said a spokesperson for the United Forum of Ex-Servicemen, the umbrella body of ex-servicemen’s associations protesting at Jantar Mantar for over two months.
“No dates have been fixed so far”.
“We have urged retired Col. Pushpinder Singh, Havildar Major Singh and Havildar Ashok Chauhan to give up the fast unto death till August 26″, a statement said on Wednesday.
Maj-Gen Satvir Singh and Lt-Gen (retd) Balbir Singh had represented the veterans at the hour-long meeting with the PM’s principal secretary Nripendra Misra on Tuesday, which was arranged by Army chief General Dalbir Singh Suhag, as reported by TOI.
The ex-servicemen’s protest over the delay in the implementation of One Rank One Pension (OROP) for military pensioners will be scaled up in the coming days as most veterans have refused to go by the government assurances. We are not going to be swayed by mere assurances.
Malik, who was mediating the talks between the government and ex-servicemen on OROP issue, repotedly sent an email to former Navy chief Admiral Sureesh Mehta, saying the PMO had called him on August 10 for taking a final call, so that the announcement could be made by the Prime Minister from the Red Fort.
Modi had on August 15 reiterated his government’s commitment towards the OROP but refrained from giving a time frame on its implementation.
And on the 65th day of the agitation on Tuesday, Delhi Police issued a formal apology for forcibly ending the ex-servicemen’s protest in the city centre a day before Independence Day.
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Close to 22 lakh ex-servicemen and over six lakh war widows stand to be immediate beneficiaries of the scheme, which envisages a uniform pension for the defence personnel who retire in the same rank with the same length of service, irrespective of their date of retirement.
