The main opposition BJP criticised the government on Saturday, labelling the action as political deceit, a day after the new Congress government in Himachal Pradesh approved the Old Pension Scheme (OPS) for state employees, with Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu describing it as a fulfilment of the party’s key election promise.
Over 1.36 lakh NPS employees who are currently protected by the New Pension Scheme (NPS) will be affected by the OPS, for which the Sukhu administration expects to spend over Rs 800 crore in the first year of implementation.The Congress government announced OPS and claimed that more than 1.36 lakh employees will profit from it. However, immediately thereafter, they turned to the Center and requested more than Rs 8,000 crore. That money has been used to build the country. The Congress-led government actually has no strategy. There are already questions about how it works. They would keep the public in the dark because they cheated their way to power, according to Himachal BJP spokesperson Karan Nanda.
Congress leaders, such as Sukhu, AICC general secretary Priyanka Gandhi, and Chhattisgarh chief minister Bhupesh Baghel, consistently emphasised the party’s commitment to the OPS during their election campaigns by citing instances of its implementation in Congress-ruled states like Rajasthan and Chattisgarh. According to them, the personnel in Rajasthan have started to leave the national corpus.
The BJP struggled during the election campaign to refute the OPS tenet of the Congress. The saffron party criticised the Congress’s plan for raising money for the OPS but did not present a substitute. Even in its manifesto, the BJP avoided addressing the OPS and just suggested a committee look into the programme and make a decision, which gave the impression that the ruling party was ambivalent about the matter.
