Congress stages protest against Agnipath scheme in Coimbatore

The city unit of the Congress staged a protest outside the BSNL office near Collectorate against the Union government’s Agnipath scheme, on Monday as part of nationwide protest.

Mayura S Jayakumar, working president of the Tamil Nadu Congress Committee, led the protest in the city.

Mr. Jayakumar told The Hindu, “this is an attempt by the Union government to recruit BJP and RSS cadre to the defence forces. The scheme prevents eligible people from getting recruited to the armed forces. The scheme would compromise the major security challenges that the country is facing, as there would be no proper training.”

Protesters said the scheme would spoil the future of the youth of the country. They also said, “as a token of protest we have kept pakoda” symbolising the Union Minister Amit Shah’s earlier comment “better to sell pakoda than being jobless”. District Congress president Karuppasamy, councillors and party cadres were present.