Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Friday,Aug 14 (IANS) has criticized the eviction of ex-servicemen from a protest site here and urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi to accept their demand for One Rank One Pension (OROP) on Independence Day .

In response to the orders of the ruling party regarding  One Rank One Pension (OROP) issue, the Aam Aadmi Party leader tweeted as “Ex-servicemen being forcibly thrown out of Jantar Mantar? Bizarre. They protected us till
yesterday. Now they are a security threat for Independence Day?”.” I urge the PM to announce (the) acceptance of the demand of OROP of our ex-servicemen from Red Fort tomorrow,” Kejriwal said.

WHAT OROP MEANS???

OROP states that every soldier who retires in the same rank gets the same pension, irrespective of his date of retirement. As of now, soldiers who retired more recently receive more pension than those who did earlier, because pensions are dependent on the last salary drawn and successive pay commissions have hiked salaries.

In September 2013, Narendra Modi after being declared as the BJP’s prime ministerial candidate, the first public promise in his campaign was One rank, one pension (OROP) for military veterans , Modi’s announcement has immediately won him the support of a majority of 2.8 million veterans in the country.

Arvind Kejriwal to prime minister Narendra Modi

Last year in the interim budget Rs 500 crore for OROP was allotted by the UPA government. Over past one year many assurances were given by various BJP ministers but still the government has not issued any orders for implementation of OROP .

According to senior ministers opinions, most of the veterans expected that PM Modi to formally announce the implemantation of OROP during the first anniversary rally at Mathura last week. His silence on OROP has caused much anguish among the veterans.

“Within a year, the NDA has started behaving the way UPA behaved in its second term. This is
how UPA-II would crush movements,” he said.

One Rank One Pension or OROP, a longstanding demand of ex-servicemen, will grant retired armed forces personnel pension parity with officers and jawans of the same rank who are retiring now. Gandhian activist Anna Hazare has announced an indefinite fast in support of OROP from October 2.