SP will restore old pension scheme for govt employees if voted to power in UP: Akhilesh Yadav
Lucknow(PTI): Making an important announcement, Samajwadi Party (SP) president Akhilesh Yadav on Thursday said if his party comes to power in Uttar Pradesh, it will restore the old pension scheme, benefitting lakhs of state government employees who have been agitating for the same for long.
With another relative of SP patriarch Mulayam Singh Yadav joining the BJP after Aparna Yadav, Akhilesh Yadav took a swipe at the ruling party, thanking it for ending "parivarvaad" (dynastic politics) in his party.
"On coming to power, the Samajwadi Party will restore the old pension scheme, which will benefit the teachers, employees and officers of the state government. I have already held discussions with the employees and economic experts and have found out that we will be able to arrange funds for it by creating a corpus," he told reporters here.
"We will seek the support of the state government employees in the upcoming Assembly election on the issue of pension," the SP chief said.
The leaders of the employees' union have met several times and made a demand to this effect. The BJP government had brought a new manual through which the employees appointed after April 2005 were denied this support and security on retirement, Yadav said, adding that restoring the pension scheme will be part of his party's poll manifesto.
The employees have held agitations demanding the restoration of the old pension scheme. They have alleged that the new pension scheme depends on the share market and therefore, has uncertainty attached to it.
According to Rajya Karamchari Sanyukt Parishad president J N Tiwari, the number of employees appointed after 2005 is around 10 lakh and most of them are teachers.
The SP president also said his party is against privatisation and termed outsourcing a wrong practice that denies the poor and the deprived sections of the society their rights.
"The rights given by the Constitution of B R Ambedkar are being snatched by outsourcing. The SP is thinking about this as well, wait for the manifesto," he said, adding that the party will release its manifesto after the BJP, "which had been working with a double engine for the last over four years and practising discrimination".
When his views were sought on Pramod Gupta, another relative of Mulayam Singh Yadav who joined the BJP on Thursday after Aparna Yadav, the SP chief took a swipe at the ruling party, saying it should be happy now.
"The BJP should be happy about this. The allegation of parivarvaad that it levelled against us, at least it is ending our parivarvaad and I thank the BJP for this," he said.
The saffron party, which has been opposed to dynastic politics, wants to move forward by hatching conspiracies, the former Uttar Pradesh chief minister alleged.
"The SP does not instigate differences in any family, this is the work of the BJP," he said.
Gupta is said to be the brother-in-law of Mulayam Singh Yadav's second wife. Aparna Yadav, who joined the BJP on Wednesday, is the SP patriarch's daughter-in-law.
"The manner in which leaders with a wide support base like Swami Prasad Maurya and Dara Singh Chauhan have defected from the BJP and joined the SP, the way the SP has brought different parties together, the BJP has lost this fight of perception and the SP is way ahead," Yadav said.
To a question on Deputy Chief Minister Keshav Prasad Maurya, the SP chief said he has not been able to safeguard his honour and could do nothing for the people of his caste.
The Uttar Pradesh Assembly polls are scheduled to be held in seven phases from February 10 to March 7 and the counting of votes will be taken up on March 10.
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Real Madrid fines Valverde and Tchouaméni half a million euros each for altercation
Barcelona (AP): Real Madrid slapped players Federico Valverde and Aurélien Tchouaméni with half-a-million-euro ($588,000) fines on Friday for their altercation during practice.
The massive fines came a day after the midfielders tussled when the team trained. Valverde said in a post on social media on Thursday that no punches were thrown. But Valverde knocked his head on a table and he suffered a small cut that required a brief hospital visit.
On social media, Valverde initially called it a “meaningless fight” with a teammate and said “everything has been blown out of proportion."
His employers, however, considered it a significant enough breach of team discipline to nail both Valverde and Tchouaméni with fines that bite even the bank account of a top soccer player. The half-a-million euro penalties reflect the reputational damage the club was enduring in a chaotic end to a disappointing season.
In a statement, the 15-time European champion said its disciplinary action was concluded after both players expressed to the club “their complete remorse for what happened and apologized to one another.”
Madrid added they also apologized to their teammates, the coaching staff and club supporters, as well as showing their willingness to accept whatever disciplinary action the club deemed “opportune.”
Tchouaméni was back training with Madrid on Friday, two days before they play at Barcelona in a clasico. Madrid has to win otherwise Barcelona will be crowned La Liga champion.
After being notified of the fine, he posted a public apology to the club and its fans on social media.
“What happened this week in training is unacceptable,” Tchouaméni wrote. "I say this while thinking about the example we are expected to set for young people, whether in football or at school.
“Above all, I am sorry for the image we projected of the club.”
Valverde was not at practice due to the head knock.
Both players are set to play in the World Cup next month, with Tchouaméni playing for France and Valverde for Uruguay.
Chaotic end to a poor season
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The run-in between the players, who for seasons have played side by side in Madrid's midfield, came after they argued this week in previous training sessions. But tempers boiled over on Thursday. Spanish media was rife with reports that the players previously disagreed over the club's decision to let coach Xabi Alonso go after just months on the job.
It was not the only altercation involving Madrid players during training this week. Álvaro Carreras confirmed he was in a “minor” incident with a teammate. Spanish media said he and fellow defender Antonio Rüdiger got into a scuffle.
Álvaro Arbeloa, the coach who was promoted from Madrid's reserve team when Alonso was fired in January, will face tough questions on what went wrong inside the changing room when he gives a press conference on Saturday ahead of the clasico at Camp Nou.
Madrid is facing a second consecutive campaign without a major trophy amid rumors in the Spanish media that club president Florentino Pérez is considering bringing back Jose Mourinho to straighten out his underperforming team.
