The Congress high command is reportedly unhappy with MP Manish Tewari, who refused to sign the Opposition’s memorandum seeking the withdrawal of Centre’s Agnipath recruitment scheme for the armed forces. Tewari, who is a member of the Consultative Committee for Defence in Parliament, said that India needs younger armed forces with lighter human footprint.

“Reality is that India needs a younger armed force with lighter human footprint savvy on technology, equipped with state of the art weaponry,” he said in a tweet, while ’empathising’ with the youth who had concerns over the scheme.

According to agency reports, the Congress leadership was unhappy with Tewari’s stand, which goes against the larger view taken by the party. In a meeting of the Consultative Committee for Defence, a demand was made by Opposition MPs to withdraw the Agnipath scheme. In the meeting, six of 12 MPs – Rajni Patil, Shaktisinh Gohil and Manish Tewari of the Congress, Supriya Sule of the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), Sudip Bandyopadhyay and Saugata Roy of the Trinamool Congress (TMC), and AD Singh from the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) – were from the Opposition. All the Opposition MPs, except Tewari, opposed the scheme.

According to a report by news agency ANI, the party leaders are also discussing the suspension of Manish Tewari from Congress. Times Now, however, could not independently verify the claims. Interestingly, some from within the party have also referred to Tewari as the ‘Subramanian Swamy of Congress’.

“The matter is stuck in view of Manish’s association with the party during the time of NSUI. The ball is in the high command’s court. Now, the relationship between Manish and Congress is very weak. Either Manish changes his stand or else action can be taken against him soon,” a party source told the agency.