The Uttar Pradesh unit of the Shiv Sena, an alliance partner of NDA government, would offer Rs 21,000 in cash to each Hindu family having 10 or more children. This, the Shiv Sena said, is an effort to counter the “growing influence of other communities”.

Shiv Sena’s state president Anil Singh told The Sunday Express that the district units have been directed to identify such families.

The party would hold a programme in November-end to reward these families along with a certificate with the message: “Rashtra hit me Hinduon ki jansankhya badhane ke liye (For increasing population of Hindus in the interest of the nation).”

The party would also launch an agitation from November 1 against family planning by Hindus. Party workers will lock government medical health centres across the state as part of the agitation.

Singh alleged only Hindus were going for vasectomies and tubectomies while other communities were avoiding it to increase their population. “We will appeal to Hindus that increasing our population is the need of the hour. If we do not, Hindus will become negligible in the country.”

He added government medical centres will be locked for a few hours in various districts on different days from November 1 onwards while another date would be decided to hold such protests across the state on a particular day. Sena workers had staged one such protest at a primary health centre in Meerut last week, he claimed.

He said the party had held a similar programme 7 years ago in Lucknow when Hindu couples with 10 or more children were awarded Rs 11,000. Around 120 families were awarded then.

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