BJP questions minority quota in Samajwadi Pension Scheme

Lucknow, Nov 5: The BJP accused the Samajwadi Party (SP) government in Uttar Pradesh of flouting laid-down norms and provisions of the Indian Constitution in its blind bid to appease its minority vote bank.

Soon after Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav launched the Samajwadi Pension scheme for 40 lakh poor families, the state unit of the Bharatiya Janata Party assailed him for announcing a 'quota' for Muslim families.

The scheme clearly spells out that a certain percentage of SCs/STs would be the beneficiaries of the pension scheme which is okay, party spokesman Vijay Bahadur Pathak said. But when it says that 10 lakh Muslim families would also be given the pension, it is not only grossly communal and part of its minority appeasement game plan but also unconstitutional, he added.

Adding that the SP government had bent all rules and flouted all norms to accommodate its fast-dwindling vote bank of minorities, Pathak sought the intervention of UP governor Ram Naik in the matter.

"If there is an anti-constitutional thing happening in the state, as the constitutional head of the state the governor has the authority to take note and seek explanation and we will definitely knock at the doors of the Raj Bhavan," Pathak told IANS.

State government officials however told IANS that there was nothing wrong in the proposal as Muslim families seeking to get pension would have to meet the eligibility criterion.

A state government spokesman however refused to elaborate and said that nothing unconstitutional, as alleged by the BJP, was being done by the state government.

IANS