The Uttarakhand Pariwartan Party (UPP) has criticised the State Government for raising the pension age eligibility from 45 to 60 years for the Uttarakhand statehood activists. Dubbing the decision of the State Government as ‘humiliating’ for to the statehood activists, Prabhat Dhyani, general secretary of UPP, said that by raising the pension age limit for the statehood fighters, the Harish Rawat Government has humiliated those who had struggled hard to make the dream of the State a reality. The UPP would not sit idle on this issue, he asserted.
“The Centre and the State Government grant pensions to the weaker sections of the society to help them come to terms with the hard reality of life. But here the case is different. The statehood activists cannot be clubbed with them as far as the affirmative Governmental action is concerned. They are not begging anything from the State Government,” Dhyani further said.
“If the State Government is not inclined to do anything for them we do not mind. But we would not allow them to make a farce of the sacrifice the activists had made for a noble cause. The State Government must withdraw the Cabinet decision of raising the pension age limit for the statehood activists,” he said. “At the same time, we also appeal to the Uttarakhand statehood activists to dethrone this anti-people Government instead of begging alms from it. They had better engage themselves in contributing their mites in shaping the dream the martyrs for the cause dreamt,” he concluded.