A boost for cash transfer

Assembly election results will trigger demand for a bigger cash transfer scheme for women

- A K BHATTACHARYA

There is now near unanimity among those who have analysed the results of Assembly elections in Maharashtra and Jharkhand that women power in electoral politics has witnessed a new dimension. It is no longer a question of promising welfare schemes or cash transfers to voters.

Targeting such benefits at women voters in particular seems to have begun yielding better electoral outcomes for those political parties that announce them in good time.

Just a few months before the Assembly elections in Maharashtra, the Eknath Shinde government launched the Ladki Bahin scheme in August 2024, providing ₹1,500 each month to over 10 million women in the state. In Jharkhand, the Hemant Soren government decided in October 2024 to raise the assistance amount promised to women under the Maiya Samman Yojana from ₹1,000 every month to ₹2,500. The Yojana was launched in August 2024.

Not to be outdone, the opposition political parties in the electoral fray had also promised similar cash transfer schemes for women, if they were voted to power. It was no surprise that the voting percentage among women saw a significant increase in these Assembly elections. And going by the verdict, it seems clear that women voters had greater faith in the promises made by the ruling parties in both the states. A promise, after all, was only a promise. In contrast, the ruling parties in Maharashtra and Jharkhand had rolled out these schemes well before the elections, and women voters had already benefitted from them as they saw the promised money in their bank accounts.

To be sure, wooing women voters is not new in India's electoral politics. Many other states have framed welfare schemes specifically for women. Not all of these states may have rolled out these schemes just before the elections. But that women could play a decisive role in electoral battles had been recognised long ago.