BSP, SP promise to restart their key welfare schemes if voted to power

The Samajwadi Party and Bahujan Samaj Party, which governed Uttar Pradesh for 10 years before BJP won the 2017 assembly polls, have promised to restart key welfare schemes if they form the next government in UP.

Some of the BSP and SP schemes were scrapped or renamed by the successor administration. The parties also announced new measures, keeping in mind current issues, even as BJP has been highlighting central schemes as a major campaign point.

In her address to BSP workers and supporters recently, BSP chief Mayawati said that she would bring back Dr Ambedkar Gram Vikas Yojana as well as the Kanshi Ram Shehri Samagra Vikas Yojana for development of villages and cities whose condition has 'deteriorated a lot'. The village development scheme started after BSP ideologue BR Ambedkar was renamed after SP idealogue Ram Manohar Lohia, after Akhilesh Yadav became the chief minister in 2012. The SP regime also scrapped the scheme named after BSP founder Kanshi Ram aimed at bettering conditions of Dalit dominated urban localities.


Yadav, meanwhile, has said he will restart the Samajwadi Pension scheme if he comes to power. The scheme, that gave ₹500 per month to below poverty line (BPL) families was scrapped after BJP assumed power in 2017. Chief minister Yogi Adityanath also ordered a detailed review of its beneficiaries. Yadav said he will triple the pension, if he is elected. The present government has pension schemes for abandoned women falling under poverty line, for handicapped and those suffering from leprosy, old-age pension, etc.