With an eye on the lok Sabha election, the Samajwadi Party has come out with another plan to distribute freebies. This time, poor labourers will get bicycles, which happens to be the election symbol of the Samajwadi Party.
The decision to distribute bicycles comes on the heels of the Cabinet proposal to distribute free sarees and blankets among the poor belonging to the below poverty line group. The women would get two sarees per year.
“Ours is a welfare government. When we have thought about students, kisan and women, how can we forget the poor labourers. So, we have decided to distribute bicycles among the poor,” SP spokesman and Cabinet-rank minister in the Akhilesh Yadav Government, Rajendra Chaudhary, said here on Wednesday.
The Government has distributed laptops to class XII pass students, cash and bicycle to girl students under Kanya Vidyadhan scheme and has even waived loans of farmers. Chaudhary said the state Government had initiated the process to purchase the bicycles to be distributed free to the poor labourers.
During its UP Assembly election campaign, the Samajwadi Party had termed its election as ‘Ummeed Ki Cycle (bicycle of hope). Chaudhary said it was a long-pending poll promise of the party and now it was being fulfilled. “Our Government is concerned for the poor people of the state and wants to serve them. We are not like the previous Government which was only concerned with building of memorials and parks and siphoning of money through corruption,” Chaudhary said.
He said the SP Government had fulfilled all the promises made during election in a record time. “The Samajwadi Party believes in implementing what it promises and these decisions of the state Government are a testimony of it’s resolve,” he added. The UP Government has offered several sops to youths and people of the state, including revival of unemployment allowance and Kanya Vidyadhan scheme, Rs 30,000 cash for Muslim girls, laptops to class XII pass students, two sarees to women and a blanket to older persons of BPl families. However, the government is yet to start the process to distribute tablets to class X pass students.