Congress, BJP leaders share stage to honour Olympics medallist Aman

Tribune News Service

Jhajjar, August 27

BJP leaders, including Finance Minister JP Dalal, party’s national secretary Om Prakash Dhankar and Babita Phogat, and Congress leaders, including Rohtak MP Deepender Hooda and Jhajjar MLA Geeta Bhukkal, shared the stage at the felicitation function organised for Paris Olympics bronze medallist Aman Sehrawat at his native Birohar village here on Tuesday.

All leaders congratulated Aman for his feat and said that he had not only brought glory to Jhajjar and Haryana but also to the entire nation. “Haryana is the land of players, who had clinched five of the six medals India won in the Paris Olympics. Three of the five medals were won by players belonging to Jhajjar district. It shows the talent of our Haryana youth. The state government is providing all facilities to budding players for honing their talent,” said Dalal.

Deepender, while talking to mediapersons, targeted the Central Government over the Unified Pension Scheme (UPS) and the New Pension Scheme (NPS). He called both schemes as anti-employee and claimed that the Congress on coming to power would implement the Old Pension Scheme, as demanded by the employees.

“The UPS and the NPS are anti-employee. The UPS is a bigger fraud with government employees than the NPS. A limit of 25 years of service has been fixed for full pension under the UPS. The biggest loss of this will be to paramilitary personnel, who take voluntary retirement before 25 years of service. The limit of 25 years of complete service has been fixed for pension at the rate of 50 per cent of the basic salary under the UPS. In such a situation, they will get only a meager pension of 10,000,” claimed Deepender.

He said that when the NPS was implemented, it was said to be better than the OPS but now the UPS was being promoted as being better. “The truth is that even 10 per cent contribution of the employees will not be received under the UPS. Pension on the basic salary will be given without counting dearness allowance (DA). In five years, the share of DA usually becomes equal to or more than the basic pay. The pension under the UPS will also be halved. Employees across the country and in states are agitating in support of their demand for the Old Pension Scheme,” he added.

The MP, while felicitating Aman Sehrawat, said that players from Haryana had won five of the six medals in the Paris Olympics. “The credit for this goes to the hard work and dedication of our players as well as the excellent sports policy of the previous Congress government led by Bhupinder Singh Hooda. If a state with 2 per cent population wins five medals, the states with the remaining 98 per cent population should have won around 245 medals,” he said in a lighter vein.