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CM?s dole caravan hits city
LURING THE youths with sops before the Assembly elections seems to be the mantra for the Samajwadi Party and Chief Minister Mulayam Singh Yadav sees no harm in extracting political mileage out of it. Amidst the state-sponsored grandeur at Phoolbagh, the CM, his MP son Akhilesh Singh Yadav and his cronies pampered the youth on Monday. Together they gave ample indications that Samajwadi Party had decided to play the youth card in the upcoming Assembly elections.
It’s time to woo youths
LURING THE youths with sops before the Assembly elections seems to be the mantra for the Samajwadi Party and Chief Minister Mulayam Singh Yadav sees no harm in extracting political mileage out of it.
Amidst the state-sponsored grandeur at Phoolbagh, the CM, his MP son Akhilesh Singh Yadav and his cronies pampered the youth on Monday. Together they gave ample indications that Samajwadi Party had decided to play the youth card in the upcoming Assembly elections.
“If we gain from this, why should we shy away from making most of it?” the chief minister asked while addressing the beneficiaries of allowances to unemployed youths and Kanya Vidya Dhan scheme. “We are being criticised from almost every quarter but we aren’t going to succumb. We will go ahead with our policies and do for you people what we can to the best of our capacity,” he said.
The CM blamed the Centre for obstructing execution of policies by drying up all assistance for political reasons. But the government had overcome all odds and achieved success on all fronts, he added. The government, with allowances to unemployed youths, had put pressure on other states too to introduce this system, he said.
“If the scheme is not adopted in other states, I shall call upon the Yuvjan Sabha to initiate a movement to pressurise governments in other states and force them to dole out allowances,” he said. The government was committed to generate jobs and if it couldn’t, the allowance money would be raised from the existing Rs 500 to Rs 1,000. So far, the government had ensured jobs for 4 lakh people in the last two years and a half even though there was a ban on recruitment in other states.
Enumerating achievements of his government, he further said the Kanya Vidya Dhan scheme was evolved keeping in mind the vision 2020 of President APJ Abdul Kalam. No social order is complete without empowerment of women, he said and added that his government wanted the girls to be literate and join the mainstream for a better society. He told the girls, “The money given is just a token of encouragement. If you want to pursue higher studies despite financial constraints, just post a letter to me”.
Talking about gender discrimination, Mulayam said only two or three per cent families treated girls fairly. In most cases, boys got preference. This scheme was directed at breaking this mindset, the CM said. His government had made provisions for gender budgeting and it had forced the Centre to make necessary amendments in its own budget, he boasted.
At Phoolbagh, the chief minister distributed cheques for 13,700 unemployed youths and girls. Out of them, 65 received cheques personally from him.
