Akhilesh Yadav promises pension for poor women

Lucknow: Lok Sabha elections are still some months away but Samajwadi Party president Akhilesh Yadav has already slipped into a poll mode.

Mr Yadav, while talking to women workers in his party, said that if SP returned to power, he would give a pension of Rs 2000 per month to women eligible for it.

The Akhilesh Yadav government had launched the Samajwadi pension scheme under which poor women were given Rs 500 per month and the beneficiaries under this scheme were around 50 lakh women.

Last year in April, chief minister Yogi Adityanath scrapped the scheme and even ordered an inquiry into the status of the beneficiaries.

Mr Yadav told his party workers that the BJP had no respect for women.

“We gave benefits to women irrespective of their caste or religion. The BJP has no concern for women and the ‘Shiksha Mitras’ are the worst hit”, he said.

Mr Yadav also slammed the Yogi government for stopping the pension of Yash Bharti awardees and said that this reflected the mindset of the government. “They have no respect for eminent persons,” he said.and added that he would restore the pension when he returned to power.

Interestingly, poet Gopal Das Neeraj, who died recently, was among the Yash Bharti recipients whose pension had been stopped by the state government. He had even written to the chief minister saying that he faced financial constraints and needed the pension.

However, after his demise, the chief minister announced that his government would honor five poets every year with a cash prize of Rs one lakh in memory of Neeraj.

K04