Want Old Pension Scheme implementation even if party expels me: Senior M.P. BJP leader

Not toeing the Bharatiya Janata Party’s official line on the Old Pension Scheme (OPS), former Madhya Pradesh Minister and senior Bharatiya Janata Party leader Gaurishankar Bisen has demanded its implementation even if it meant his expulsion from the party.

Mr. Bisen, 70, who’s an MLA from Balaghat and the chairman of the Other Backward Class Commission of the State, made the assertion in assist of the OPS on Friday. He was addressing a gathering beneath the continuing Vikas Yatra of the federal government in Balaghat.

“The way a husband needs his wife in old age and wife needs husband, similarly old pension is needed for employees. Take my voice to Delhi, give old pension to lakhs of my comrades.. It doesn’t matter if the party will expel me or takes away the post [of OBC Commission chairman] from me but if you starve, it does matter,” he might be heard saying in a video.

The assertion comes at a time when the State has already entered the marketing campaign mode and the Congress has promised the implementation of the OPS in a couple of different States it guidelines. The BJP, it’s broadly understood, is just not in favour of the implementation.

It is on this context that Mr. Bisen’s assertion assumes significance. While the BJP formally didn’t touch upon the problem, sources inside the party and the federal government had been divided on the interpretation of the veteran’s newest tackle the OPS. One part claimed that it was enterprise as regular for somebody like Mr. Bisen — who had aired divergent views from the party like fellow Lodhi leader Uma Bharti — to make his presence felt forward of the elections. Such statements, mentioned a supply, had been stress ways to make sure that he or his daughter bought the ticket for 2023 polls.

However, one other prevailing view was that there was a buzz inside the party that if the OPS labored nicely for the Congress within the Himachal Pradesh elections, it might have political potential in Madhya Pradesh too. Employee unions within the State — who’re a significant vote financial institution themselves and likewise act as opinion leaders by advantage of forming a powerful center class and being those that take authorities schemes to the previous mile — have been demanding the OPS.