Ahmednagar, Sep 16 (Representative) Maharashtra Pradesh Congress Committee (MPCC) president Nana Patole on Sunday called out the BJP-led government in the state on issue of implementation of the Old Pension Scheme for the government employees. Addressing the state-level convention on pension at Shirdi in the district, he alleged that the BJP-led government in the state and at the Centre was feeling tension over the demand to implement the OPS for its employees. Now, the pension scheme launched by the BJP-led government has not been accepted by the employees, he noted and charged that Prime Minister Narendra Modi was falsely pretending that the same pension scheme is accepted by the government employees. On the contrary, the Congress party supports the government employees’ demand of implementation of the OPS, he asserted. He said that the old pension is the right of the government employees, whereby their own money is given to them after retirement.
“The government is not doing any favour, but the BJP-led government says that if the Old Pension Scheme is implemented, the treasury of the state will be empty,” he said in a jibe. “Hasn’t the government’s coffers become empty when it waived off businessman Anil Ambani’s loan of Rs 1,700 crore?” he taunted. There are 2.5 lakh government posts vacant in the state, but the grand alliance government is not filling those posts, he claimed and promised to fill these vacancies only after the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government comes to power. Patole said that government employees are needed to implement all the schemes to rebuild Maharashtra. The OPS has been implemented in states where the Congress government is in power, he said and accused the corrupt Mahayuti government of taking Maharashtra back by 10 years and the Modi government at the Centre during its 10-year tenure has also pushed the country and the state backward. After the MVA government comes to power in the state, it will take a decision to implement the OPS in the first meeting of the state cabinet, he added.