Rajasthan Assembly Passes 'Fighters Of Democracy Honour Bill' Granting Lifetime Pension, Medical Allowance And Free Transport To Emergency Prisoners

Jaipur: On the day of end of Emergency in India, March 21st, the legislative assembly of Rajasthan passed the bill to grant lifetime pension with medical allowance and free transport to the prisoners of Emergency.

The BJP government of the state has termed the prisoners of Emergency as Loktantra Ke Senani (democracy fighters) and the bill named Loktantra Ke Senaniyon Ka Samman (Rajasthan Democracy Fighters' Honor) Bill was passed in the assembly by voice vote on Friday.

The Bill provides for pension and medical and transport facilities to a prisoner who remained in jail under the Maintenance of Internal Security Act (MISA) and Defense of India Rules (DIR) for 30 days during the Emergency. After the death of the democracy fighter, his or her spouse will continue to get the pension.

“Passing this bill today is historic because the Emergency was ended on March 21st, 1977. Now rules will be made to add some more facilities suggested by MLAs for democracy fighters who went to jail during the Emergency," said Parliamentary Affairs Minister Jogaram Patel in the house.

A committee will be formed at the district level to check the eligibility. This committee will have MLAs along with administrative officers.

During the debate on this bill in the assembly, many BJP MLAs demanded to make provision for giving free travel facility to the husband and wife of democracy fighters, reducing the period of stay in jail from one month to 10 days and adding many more provisions.

Notably, there are around 1200 prisoners of Emergency in Rajasthan, including some prominent leaders of the BJP. All are already getting a monthly pension of Rs 20,000, medical allowance of Rs 4000.

In fact, the provision for pension for these prisoners was first made by the Vasundhara Raje government in 2008. Since then, it has stopped twice during the successive Congress governments. Now in case Congress comes to power in the state, it'll have to bring a legislation to stop it.