Appointing private people on defence subcommittees a sell-out: Congress

Panaji, May 26 (IANS) The Congress on Thursday slammed, as a "sell-out" the defence ministry's move to appoint private individuals to its sub-committees which decide on defence procurement.

Addressing a press conference at the Congress state headquarters here, party national spokesperson Priyanka Chaturvedi also said that the defence ministry in the National Democratic Alliance government had failed dismally to make the armed forces feel secure and up to the mark.

"Appointing private players into something which will decide who will be our contractors, who will we be working with, who our strategic partners should be, speaks how much we have sold it to private players as compared to our own people who are in-charge," she said.

Taking on Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar, Chaturvedi also alleged that appointing private players on the sub committees was questionable.

"Doesn't that speak about his integrity towards his role, doesn't it speak of the challenges a defence minister should be able to live up to but is failing time and again. You saw what happened in Pathankot..." she said.

Terming the defence ministry's performance a failure, Chaturvedi said: "We have seen as far as procuring and making the army feel secure or our various services feel up to the mark has failed. He has failed tremendously".

She also said that the failure of the defence ministry to resolve the 'One Rank, One Pension' issue was also a major blot on the NDA government report card.