New Delhi, Dec 27 () The leader of opposition (LoP) in Delhi Assembly, Ramvir Singh Bidhuri, on Tuesday accused Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal of snatching away the rights of 20 lakh senior citizens in the national capital.
The Delhi government has not given pension to senior citizens since July this year, the BJP leader claimed.
Also, no new applications for old-age pension have been accepted by Delhi government for the last five years, leaving lakhs of elderly people disappointed, he claimed.
Bidhuri told in a press conference that Delhi BJP had submitted a memorandum to Lieutenant Governor V.K. Saxena on October 11, stating that since 2018, the Delhi government has put on hold new applications for old-age pension.
Every year in the state budget of Delhi government, a provision is made for pension for the elderly people, but still no pension has been issued to them, the BJP leader said.
Delhi BJP spokesperson Ajay Sehrawat was also present at the press conference convened by Bidhuri.
The Delhi opposition leader said that whatever the Delhi government has said in response to the memorandum given to the L-G was “shocking and disappointing”.
The Chief Minister’s Office has replied that the decision regarding pension has not been taken yet, and it has to be taken by the Delhi Cabinet, Bidhuri added.
“It has also been said that the Delhi government will take a decision in this regard at an appropriate time. Only the Delhi government can tell when this appropriate time will come. It is possible that the Delhi government will remember these elderly people just before the 2025 Assembly elections,” he said.
Bidhuri also said that during the 2020 Assembly elections, the Aam Aadmi Party had promised that 1,000 new applications would be approved every year in every Assembly constituency of Delhi and accordingly, in five years, 3.5 lakh new applications should have been approved and the pension for senior citizens should have been started, but not a single new pension was started.
The opposition leader added that now the situation has gone out of control and the BJP will not tolerate this at all.
The BJP is preparing to launch an agitation against the Delhi government for not giving pension to senior citizens, he added.
dr/khz/arm