The Congress on Wednesday said the BJP and Prime Minister Narendra Modi, whom the Opposition party accused of always exploiting soldiers’ sacrifices for electoral gains, had betrayed troopers on the question of Orop (one-rank-one-pension).

The Supreme Court on Wednesday upheld the Orop principle adopted by the Centre in its 2015 communication issued to the chiefs of the three defence forces, saying it neither suffers from any “constitutional infirmity” nor is it “arbitrary”. The top court’s verdict came on a plea filed by the Indian Ex-servicemen Movement through advocate Balaji Srinivasan against the Centre’s Orop formula.

Congress communications chief Randeep Surjewala said the Modi government had not presented complete facts before the Supreme Court. He said the Modi government had opposed the court’s intervention by arguing that a policy decision having financial implications should be left to the executive.

Recalling that the UPA government had accepted Orop on February 17, 2014, and executed it on April 1 that year, Surjewala said the entire detail had been decided.

“On October 23, 2014, Modi himself and the then finance minister, Arun Jaitley, on July 10, 2014, accepted the implementation of Orop. But on November 7, 2015, the Modi government passed an order turning Orop into one rank, five pensions, denying all those who retire prematurely the benefits of the scheme,” the Congress spokesperson said.

The Supreme Court on Wednesday upheld the government’s decision.

Surjewala said: “Forty-six per cent personnel take premature retirement. Barely 10,000 of 13 lakh personnel remain in service till the age of 60. They all will be denied Orop benefits. Why did the Modi government oppose Orop in court? Is it not a betrayal of 30 lakh serving and ex-servicemen?”