State Bureau, Lucknow. Yogi government is going to fulfill its election manifesto promise of giving pension of Rs 1500 to pensioners. Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath announced the increase in pension amount during his address in the Assembly on Friday. This will benefit approximately 1.18 crore elderly, disabled and destitute widow women pensioners of the state.

It is believed that the increased amount will be implemented from April 1. This decision is also considered important in view of the assembly elections to be held in the year 2027. With this, BJP is hoping to increase its penetration among the pensioner class of voters.

Old Age Pension, Destitute Widow Women Pension and Disabled Pension Scheme are being run in the state. Of these, 67.50 lakh elderly beneficiaries are included in the Old Age Pension Scheme. 38.58 lakh women are getting the benefit of Destitute Widow Women Pension. Whereas there are more than 11.50 lakh beneficiaries of the Divyangjan Scheme.

Before the year 2017, the monthly pension amount in all these schemes was Rs 300. After the formation of BJP government, it was first increased from Rs 300 to Rs 500 and then to Rs 1000. At the time of 2022 assembly elections, BJP had promised in its resolution letter to increase the pension amount to Rs 1500.

Now assembly elections are to be held in the year 2027 and before that our government was busy preparing to fulfill its resolve. Budget arrangements were also made for this. This time in the budget, Rs 8950 crore has been given for old age pension, Rs 3500 crore for Destitute Widow Women Pension Scheme and Rs 1470 crore for Divyangjan Pension Scheme. With a lump sum increase of Rs 500 in the pension amount, the pension amount of all schemes will become Rs 1500 per month.

BJP can get big electoral benefits from this move of Yogi government. If the number of pensioners and their relatives are also included, then this is a very large voter class and in the past also BJP has been talking about getting their support. Now, after completing the resolution of increasing the pension amount, BJP will also run a campaign to garner support through its publicity before the elections. This is likely to increase the challenge for the opponents.