The ongoing state elections are the first to take place after Parliament passed the women’s reservation bill last month. The legislation reserves one-third of seats for women in the Lok Sabha and legislative assemblies but its eventual implementation will take longer.
While once enacted the new law will refocus attention on women in Indian politics and the electorate, political parties in the -bound states have stepped up their outreach to women voters. Governments in Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh have been implementing and promising women-specific policies and schemes to draw their support. These three states, along with Telangana and Mizoram, vote for a new state assembly next month and counting will take place on December 3.
Women leaders of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Congress from the three North Indian states say women form a key constituency for their respective parties. They add that as the campaign picks up, the women’s wing of both parties are holding smaller meetings and community gatherings to reach out to this cohort and talking about steps taken by their respective parties to benefit them.
Political outreach
Both the national parties have been implementing and promising a series of schemes to benefit women in these three poll-bound states. In Madhya Pradesh, for instance, the BJP-led government earlier this year launched the Ladli Behna Yojana, a monthly financial assistance scheme for underprivileged women.
In Congress-led Rajasthan, the Indira Gandhi Free Smartphone Yojana 2023 provides for free smartphones with internet connectivity for women. The Congress government in Chhattisgarh too has been running programmes around providing education to girls, supporting women’s self-help groups (SHGs) and providing access to safe public transportation for women.
“Under chief minister Shivraj Singh (Chouhan)’s government, we have been doing a lot for political and economic empowerment of women. Our Ladli Behna scheme has been very popular. We have always supported women economically and worked towards helping them lead more independent lives,” Maya Naroliya, the Mahila Morcha (the BJP’s women’s wing) chief of Madhya Pradesh, told Moneycontrol.
She added that the wing has been running special campaigns for women ahead of polls in the state including organising conventions of beneficiaries of the Ladli Behna scheme at the division level, meetings for first-time young female voters and mahila chaupals (women’s community meetings) at the booth level.
“In these meetings, we engage with them and tell them about how the central and state governments are working for them and what schemes will benefit them. We are confident of getting their support,” she added.
In Rajasthan, the Ashok Gehlot-led Congress government too is banking on women voters to beat the three-decade-plus trend of incumbents getting voted out. Rakhi Gautam, chief of the Rajasthan Mahila Congress, its women arm, said that the party is optimistic of support from women because of the initiatives taken by the state government.
“Our state government has been working for the welfare of women and this will draw their support to the Congress. Women have become more aware of their own rights and of their families,” Gautam told Moneycontrol. She added that small community-level meetings of women voters are being held in Rajasthan to engage with women voters.
“In our campaign, we talk about our schemes that have directly benefited them. We tell them that others talk but we act on our promises,” she said.
Women voters and representatives
Over the years, the turnout of women voters has increased, making them a vital part of any political party’s win in a state or national election. One of the most significant examples of this in recent times has been the political rise of Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar on the back of the huge support of women voters after he promised a liquor ban in the state.
Political experts feel that with women voters once again in the spotlight, both the BJP and Congress will reach out to them through existing schemes and future promises in the poll-bound states, but on the ground, easy accessibility of the stated benefits remains a significant hurdle.
“Reaching out to women voters will be a key issue in this election. However, women don’t get benefits of schemes run by governments as much as they should. Things have improved but more needs to be done as funds received through such schemes are in most cases used for household expenditure,” Nidhi Jain, a Rajasthan coordinator of the Lokniti Network run by the Delhi-based Centre for the Study of Developing Societies told Moneycontrol.
Jain, who is also the founder of Pratidhwani Sansthan, a non-governmental organisation that works for better livelihood opportunities for tribal women in Rajasthan’s Banswara district, added that the recently passed legislation on women’s reservation could also be a major talking point for both national parties in this election.
While the BJP has been talking about how after more than 27 years, the reservation law was passed by its government under Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the Congress has been criticising its passage being contingent on the conduct of the census and the delimitation exercise, which will delay its roll out.
According to data from the Delhi-based PRS Legislative Research, on average, only 9 percent of current members of various legislative assemblies or MLAs are women. Interestingly, among the three North Indian poll-bound states, Chhattisgarh tops this list with 18 percent women MLAs while Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan are at 9 percent and 14 percent, respectively.
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