‘Unhappy’ veterans vow to defeat BJP; back SP-Cong

Vibha Sharma

Tribune News Service

Lucknow, February 21

They claim to have affected the “outcome” in favour of the BJP-led NDA on “at least 150 seats” in the 2014 Lok Sabha poll.

And now in the UP Assembly polls, they are out to punish the incumbent government at the Centre for, what they call, renegading on the “promises” made to them by none other than Modi in the run-up to the 2014 poll at Rewari.

Office-bearers of the United Front of Ex-servicemen of India — Maj-Gen Satbir Singh (retd), Group Capt VK Gandhi and Lieut Kameshwar Pandey, who travelled to Lucknow to show solidarity with the SP-Congress combine today—will be making more trips to UP before the last vote is cast.

The aim is to urge ex-servicemen to “vote against Modi” in the remaining four phases. Veterans, they say, voted for the BJP in 2014 on the “solemn promise by Narendra Modi at the Rewari rally on September 15 in front of 3.5 lakh veterans that he will approve full OROP to armed forces personnel”.

But his government “reneged the promise to soldiers and on November 7, 2015, approved a one-time increment in the garb of OROP”. Claiming to having swayed trends against the Akali-BJP formation in Punjab with its “60 lakh” membership, Singh believes “40 lakh” ex-servicemen in UP can make a difference. “We just want to make a point that those who betrayed us (in OROP grant) should be punished. With our strength, we can easily affect fortunes in 75 to 90 odd seats in the eastern and central parts,” he said.