Indian Army may suspend or shift Agnipath rallies to nearby states amid no local support in Punjab

New Delhi: The Indian Army may cancel the Agneepath recruitment rally citing a lack of cooperation in Punjab’s Jalandhar. The zonal recruiting officer has told the Punjab government that the recruitment rallies under the short-term Agneepath scheme in the state may either be postponed or shifted to neighboring states due to no support from the local civil administration.

Jalandhar’s Zonal Recruiting Officer, Major General Sharad Bikram Singh wrote a letter addressed to the Chief Secretary of Punjab, VK Janjua and Kumar Rahul, Principal Secretary, Employment Generation, Skill Development and Training on 8 September 2022.

He wrote, “We are constrained, it is necessary to bring to your attention the issue that the support of the local civil administration is decreasing without any clear commitment. They are usually citing lack of instructions from the state government in Chandigarh or paucity of funds.”

Soughting some facilities from the local administration, Singh mentioned in his letter that there are some essential requirements that the local administration should give for conducting recruitment rallies. These requirements include police support for maintaining law and order, security, barricading required to control the crowd, and easy entry of candidates.

Notably, recruitment rallies were organized in Ludhiana in August this year. As per the information shared by the Indian Army, nearly 27,000 candidates are expected to participate in the recruitment rallies in Patiala. These rallies will be organized in six districts of Malerkotla, Fatehgarh Sahib, Mansa, Patiala, Sangrur, and Barnala.