Calling for pension parity in armed forces for the men who retire at the same rank and with the same length of service was one of the point on which Narendra Modi vociferously campaigned during the last Lok Sabha elections to woo the single largest vote bank — the ex-servicemen. At that time BJP Prime Ministerial candidate got overwhelming support from former army men. Today BJP Govt led by Modi has completed one year in office and the issue how so ever complicated remained confined to files with little ground work covered. Modi’s growing popularity and political stature coupled with clean naturalist approach, denouncing the appeasement policies of pseudo-secular politicians and their inclination towards the anti-national and even pro-terrorist lobbies, certainly earned him the applause and sympathy of the ex-servicemen, who spent years of their lives fighting against anti-national elements. They need to be heard compassionately. As compared to civilian compatriots the defence personnel have a shorter service tenure resulting into huge disparities. The military pensions were reduced and aligned with civilian pensioners after the Third Pay Commission recommendations in 1973. Earlier, Atal Bihari Vajpayee also made promises while wooing voters for NDA Government. Then it was Congress which raked up the issue to woo them even during the tenure of UPA I by Sonia Gandhi and then later by Manmohan Singh during the UPA II term. His Govt made a sordid announcement of big windfall for former soldiers which proved a hoax. Even the Supreme Court has also recognised this demand. Much of politics has been played over the issue for the last 40 years and today also to find out a solution to this vexatious issue does not look that easy as has been thought over. It has more of economics and less of emotions involved when one looks at the large army of former soldiers. Though Prime Minister Modi has given his word but finally no date on implementing the one-rank-one pension scheme has been announced. Now the question is when? This only government can answer.
