AGRA: The Shiv Sena in Uttar Pradesh announced on Saturday that it would give Rs 2 lakh to each Hindu family that has five children or more. The reason behind their stand, they said, was the “rising percentage of Muslim population in the country as stated in the latest (religion) census report”.

Speaking to TOI, Veenu Lavania, president of the Sena's Agra unit, said, “After the recent census report, we are concerned over the falling growth of Hindu population while the Muslim population in India grew by 24.6% between 2001 and 2011. In contrast, the decadal population growth of Hindus stood at 16.8% during the same period. We have now decided to introduce the reward system, in which we are going to give Rs two lakh to all those Hindu families who gave birth to a minimum of five children. This will be with retrospective effect and all those who had these number of kids between the year 2005 to 2015 can claim the money.”

The Shiv Sena added that all that the Hindu families needed to do to get this “reward' was furnish birth certificates issued from the municipal corporation. “After this, we will either transfer money in their bank account or will hand over cheque from the party fund of the state,” Lavania said.

He added, “Central government should bring a law forcing Muslims to marry only one woman like Hindus do, or their rights to vote should be taken away in case they have more than two children.”