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Cong announces sops for MP, calls meet of poll-bound states
The Congress party has promised to bring back the Old Pension Scheme in Madhya Pradesh if elected to power, along with other poll promises including a gas cylinder for ?500, farm loan waiver and no electricity charges for 100 units. The party won last year's Himachal Pradesh poll on the same agenda. The elections in Madhya Pradesh are still six months away, but the Congress has already called a meeting to discuss the upcoming polls in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh.
The Congress party announced it will bring back the Old Pension Scheme in Madhya Pradesh if elected to power as a part of poll promises declared on Monday.
The promise of bringing back OPS instead of the New Pension Scheme has been politically beneficial for the party that won last year’s Himachal Pradesh poll on the same agenda.
The Congress tweeted the party’s “promise to the people of Madhya Pradesh” even as the elections in the state is still six months away. The package includes gas cylinder for ₹500, ₹1,500 per month to every woman, farm loan waiver and no electricity charges for 100 units and 50% less charge for 200 units.
“We kept our promise in Karnataka – now we will keep it in MP,” tweeted the Congress. In Karnataka, the party had promised cash incentives to farmers, women and young people. On May 20, the newly-elected Siddaramaiah government approved the five sops in its first cabinet meeting.
Two days after its government was installed in Karnataka, the Congress party has shifted its focus on the upcoming elections of Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh. Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge has called a meeting on May 24 to discuss the upcoming polls.
Rajasthan CM Ashok Gehlot, Chhattisgarh CM Bhupesh Baghel, Pradesh Congress chiefs of the three states and senior AICC functionaries will attend the meeting. The elections in these states are expected in November this year.
“A threadbare discussion on the situation in the three states and how the Congress will approach the elections is expected to be discussed. In 2018, we formed the government in all three states. However, our government collapsed in Madhya Pradesh in 2020,” said a senior Congress leader.
The new pension scheme, or NPS, was brought during Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s government and rolled out on January 1, 2004. When the Narendra Modi government came to power, it offered tax benefits on the scheme to make it popular.
At the heart of the old “pay as you go scheme”, operational till 2004, lay an intergenerational disparity, according to analysts. Under it, contributions from the current generation of workers were used to pay for pensions of current pensioners, making it an unfunded pension scheme because it represented a direct transfer of resources from the current generation of taxpayers to fund the pensions.
