Government only following up on decision taken by UPA: Congress

NEW DELHI: Congress on Sunday slammed the Centre over OROP, saying the UPA government had announced implementation of the scheme and the present regime was only following it up. The party also accused the Modi government of diluting the scheme.

"Yesterday's announcement according to me is a substantial dilution of OROP principle," former defence minister A K Antony said."It is a dilution of the UPA 's announcement that OROP will be introduced from April 2014.There also, this government is playing politics.Because if they accept April 1, 2014, they fear that the credit will go to the UPA. So they made a change to July 1," he added.

Antony said there were debates in Parliament, in government and political circles after which the UPA government accepted the rec ommendation of the parliamentary committee for OROP and set apart Rs 500 crore. "In our first announcement we had announced Rs 500 crore in token and then also we said that whatever money is needed, we will give and we have moved for more money ," he said.

The party rejected Prime Minister Narendra Modi's charge that previous governments failed to take a decision on OROP , saying the UPA had decided to implement the scheme last year. "We don't need a certificate from the PM.In principle, the decision (OROP) was taken by the UPA government. This government is only following up what we have done," party spokesman P C Chacko said.

Congress termed the OROP announcement as BJP's propaganda before Bihar assembly elections. "Maybe, they want to use it as propaganda in the Bihar elections, so they have said they have implemented it," Chacko said.