The Uttar Pradesh government has said it will give an annual pension of Rs 6,000 to women who have been deserted by their husbands, with chief minister Yogi Adityanath making the announcement at a programme for victims of instant triple talaq which the BJP-ruled Centre has outlawed.

The BJP dispensation has been holding meetings across the country to publicise the decision to ban instant triple talaq.

As part of a samwad (dialogue) in Lucknow on Wednesday, where victims of instant triple talaq had been invited, Adityanath said: “Besides those women who have been victims of instant triple talaq, we will also give an annual pension of Rs 6,000 to women of other religions, including Hindus.”

The chief minister said the pension would be given for the “rehabilitation” of deserted women.

According to Adityanath, 273 cases of instant triple talaq had been reported in Uttar Pradesh in the past year and that the government had registered FIRs in all of them because “Muslim women have been suffering the most in almost every district of the state”.

“Some people have been insulting women and undermining their role in a family. The Modi government, with the aim of ensuring their welfare and social security, has enacted a law to criminalise instant triple talaq,” Adityanath told the gathering.

The chief minister said the state government would provide a job to Shumaila Javed, a national-level netball player, and also bear the cost of her legal battle against her husband for pronouncing the instant triple talaq on her over phone in 2017.

“Those Hindu men who have wrongly severed relations with their wives for a second marriage will also be punished. It is easy to break a relationship but it is difficult to start one. Our fight is to make a relation,” Adityanath said, promising jobs for women deserted by their husbands.