Govt deliberately delaying one-rank, one-pension: Congress

NEW DELHI: Even as Prime Minister Narendra Modi sought to assure former servicemen on the one rank, one pension (OROP) issue in his radio address 'Mann ki Baat' on Sunday, Congress said the NDA government was deliberately delaying the decision while slamming the PM for saying that the issue was a "vexed" one.
"The government is deliberately delaying the OROP scheme," Congress spokesman Ajay Maken said.
The party also accused Modi of ignoring big promises made during the election campaign and harping only on the OROP scheme. "Why did he (Modi) not touch upon important issues such as bringing back black money from abroad and clarifications on Rafale aircraft deal with France? Rather, he chose to further compound the problem, confuse the entire issue by creating another flutter by saying that OROP is a very complex issue," Maken said.
"Modi's criticism of the UPA government on the issue is also not valid," he added.
Describing the OROP issue as complicated and pending for the past 40 years, Modi said the government were engaged to find a solution to this and asked ex-servicemen not to be swayed by politics over it.
Maken said his party was expecting that Modi would discuss the country's economic situation as well as unemployment in the country, but he didn't.