Facing flak for poor governance in the last four and a half years, Uttar Pradesh’s Yogi Adityanath government has made a desperate attempt to woo voters by proposing a Bill to control the population in the state. The Uttar Pradesh State Law Commission has drafted what’s being called as Uttar Pradesh Population (Control, Stabilisation and Welfare) Bill, 2021, seeking feedback from people.
According to the salient features of the draft bill, couples procreating more than two children after the bill takes the shape of law will be barred from availing benefits of government-sponsored welfare schemes and banned from contesting local body elections.
“Public servants who adopt the two-child norm will get two additional increments during the entire service, maternity or as the case may be, paternity leave of 12 months, with full salary and allowances and three percent increase in the employer’s contribution fund under national pension scheme,” say the draft Bill.
Suggestions to the draft bill can be sent to the law commission by email by 19 July.
Uttar Pradesh goes to polls in February next year with Yogi Aidtyanath facing criticism for poor governance since coming to power in March 2017. Adityanath had to face criticism for the inept handling of the second wave of the pandemic, which saw scores die for the want of access to basic healthcare and oxygen. Hundreds of dead bodies were found to be floating in river Ganga. They had to be buried on the riverbank in Allahabad.
More recently, the BJP government in Uttar Pradesh was left red-faced after videos of women being assaulted during block chief polls went viral. In one video, goons were seen grabbing a woman by her saree. In another video, a woman had her saree pulled.
The BJP is hoping that the population control bill, after it becomes a law, would not go down well with Muslims and make its core Hindutva voters, many of whom were upset by the government’s handling of the pandemic, extremely happy