'SP will restore old pension scheme for govt employees'

Lucknow: Making an important announcement, Samajwadi Party (SP) president Akhilesh Yadav on Thursday said if his party comes to power in Uttar Pradesh, it will restore the old pension scheme, benefitting lakhs of state government employees who have been agitating for the same for long.

With another relative of SP patriarch Mulayam Singh Yadav joining the BJP after Aparna Yadav, Akhilesh Yadav took a swipe at the ruling party, thanking it for ending "parivarvaad" (dynastic politics) in his party.

"On coming to power, the Samajwadi Party will restore the old pension scheme, which will benefit the teachers, employees and officers of the state government. I have already held discussions with the employees and economic experts and have found out that we will be able to arrange funds for it by creating a corpus," he told reporters here.

"We will seek the support of the state government employees in the upcoming Assembly election on the issue of pension," the SP chief said.

The leaders of the employees' union have met several times and made a demand to this effect. The BJP government had brought a new manual through which the employees appointed after April 2005 were denied this support and security on retirement, Yadav said, adding that restoring the pension scheme will be part of his party's poll manifesto.

The employees have held agitations demanding the restoration of the old pension scheme. They have alleged that the new pension scheme depends on the share market and therefore, has uncertainty attached to it.

According to Rajya Karamchari Sanyukt Parishad president J N Tiwari, the number of employees appointed after 2005 is around 10 lakh and most of them are teachers.

The SP president also said his party is against privatisation and termed outsourcing a wrong practice that denies the poor and the deprived sections of the society their rights.

Akhilesh Yadav will contest the Uttar Pradesh election from the Karhal constituency in Mainpuri district, his first assembly poll as a candidate.

"The party president will contest from Karhal seat of Mainpuri," SP national spokesperson Ashutosh Verma said.

Yadav, who is an MP from Azamgarh seat, had said on Wednesday that he would decide on contesting the Uttar Pradesh polls after talking to the people of his parliamentary constituency. The Samajwadi Party's Mainpuri district unit during the day gave a written request to the party chief to contest from the Karhal seat and he agreed, sources said.

Mainpuri has traditionally been a Samajwadi Party stronghold. The Lok sabha constituency has been with the SP for nine consecutive terms. Sitting MP and SP patriarch Mulayam Singh Yadav is representing it for the fifth time.

At present, the SP holds three out of the four assembly seats in Mainpuri district.