Welfare schemes win female voters but fail to boost women in politics

After a disappointing performance in Maharashtra in the June Lok Sabha election, the prospects were bleak for the BJP-led Mahayuti alliance in the Assembly election in November. The BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) had won only 17 of the 48 seats, down 24 from its 2019 tally, while the Congress-led INDIA coalition won 30. However, five months later, the saffron party and its alliance roared back to power, apparently riding on the newly created “Ladki Bahin” (beloved sister) scheme. The turnaround once again served to reinforce what all major political players have come to realise: the game-changing power that lies in the women’s vote bank across the country.

This power has changed the political dynamics in the country, as all political parties, in a bid to tap into this massive vote bloc, have shifted their strategies to appear more women-centric, evident in the ever-increasing welfare schemes that are being either presented or promised to women voters.

Maharashtra strategy

Conceived just 24 days after the NDA’s drubbing by the INDIA bloc in the Lok Sabha election, the Ladki Bahin Yojana, through which the poor women of Maharashtra receive a monthly grant of Rs.1,500 each, proved to be a master stroke as it yielded an enormous electoral dividend by way of votes from women.

The election for Maharashtra was not held alongside those of Haryana and Jammu and Kashmir; it was scheduled for November. Money from the scheme began to flow into the accounts of the women from August, and in November, 3.06 crore women came out to cast their vote, around 43 lakh more than in the Lok Sabha election. Chief Minister Eknath Shinde had earlier promised to increase the amount to Rs.2,100 if his alliance was voted back to power. Maharashtra has 4.6 crore women voters, of which 2.34 crore were already beneficiaries of the scheme by the time the State went to the polls.

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While announcing the scheme, Deputy Chief Minister and Finance Minister Ajit Pawar had said the government would take the scheme to 2.5 crore women with a budgetary provision of Rs.46,000 crore.

Madhya Pradesh scheme

Although the timing of the scheme was perfect, the idea was not entirely original. The Mahayuti took a page out of the Madhya Pradesh government’s “Ladli Behna” (dear sister) scheme of 2023, introduced by Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan. In fact, most of the women-centric beneficiary schemes in different States are clones of one another, differing only in name and varying in amounts.

The common factor in all of them is the inevitable success they have brought to the various parties that have implemented them. The huge jump in the number of women voters nationally, since 2019, has led to an overall shift in the focus of political parties in planning their election campaigns and strategy.

In 2019, of the 89.6 crore people who voted, 46.5 crore were male and 43.1 crore female. In 2024, the total number of voters increased to 96.8 crore, and the number of women voters rose to 47.1 crore, an increase of 4 crore, while the number of male voters increased by only 3.2 crore.

Of the 2.63 crore new voters included in the electoral rolls, around 1.41 crore were women, compared with 1.22 crore men. In 2019, 12 States recorded more women voters than men, but in 2024, 19 of the 36 States and Union Territories had more women voting than men.

In the national polling percentage, women at 65.7 per cent were just 0.1 per cent less than men. Further, the national elector gender ratio increased from 928 women per 1,000 men in 2019 to 948 in 2024.

Replicating success in Jharkhand

In the changing scenario, Maharashtra has not been the only State to witness a women-centric campaign yielding victorious results. In the Jharkhand election too, the spotlight on women voters was never so focussed as it was this year, with the two main contenders—the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) and the BJP—leaving nothing to chance to woo women voters.

Women electors outnumbered men in 32 of the total 81 Assembly constituencies in the State. With a large number of men from the tribal and Dalit segments migrating out of the State for work, the parties’ attention on women voters was even more intense.

The JMM government led by Hemant Soren had already implemented the Maiya Samman Yojana, which extends financial assistance of Rs.1,000 a month each to eligible women, and Soren promised to increase this amount to Rs.2,500 from December if voted back to power. Both the scheme and the promised hike clearly appealed to women voters as their turnout was more than men’s in 68 constituencies. Of the 91 lakh women who voted in Jharkhand, the scheme’s beneficiaries alone numbered 50 lakh.

Success in Karnataka and Tamil Nadu

Pre-election promises in recent times have increasingly centred around issues of women’s empowerment. In the lead up to the Karnataka Assembly election in 2023, the Congress announced that it would implement five guarantees as soon as it came to power, all of which would directly and indirectly benefit women in the State.

Of the five guarantees, two schemes—Shakti (free travel for women in public transport buses) and Gruha Lakshmi (Rs.2,000 assistance to women who are heads of households)—directly targeted women, while the other three—Gruha Jyothi (200 units of free electricity to every household), Anna Bhagya (10 kilograms of rice to each person below the poverty line), and Yuva Nidhi (dole of Rs.3,000 and Rs.1,500 each for unemployed graduates and diploma holders respectively)—also benefited women indirectly. (The annual recurring expenditure on these welfare schemes is estimated to cost the exchequer Rs.52,000 crore.)

Political observers in Karnataka said that these schemes were among the main factors that led to the Congress’ landslide victory.

In neighbouring Tamil Nadu, nearly 60 lakh women, transgender individuals, and old people use the State government’s “Vidiyal Payanam”, or free bus travel scheme, each day. Introduced in 2021 after the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) was voted to power, the savings from this scheme have helped families of the beneficiaries meet unexpected expenses. Alongside this scheme was the Women’s Rights Grants Scheme, which gave eligible women Rs.12,000 each annually.

During the Lok Sabha election in Tamil Nadu, women voters, at 69.85 per cent, overtook men (69.58 per cent) marginally, and the DMK alliance won all 39 seats.

The fact that multiple States have adopted the same approach—free bus rides for women plus guaranteed income grants—shows that such schemes resonate across borders and end up having the desired electoral impact on the ground.

How Ladli Behna clinched it for BJP

Madhya Pradesh was no exception during its Assembly election in November 2023. In its campaign, the BJP placed the spotlight on schemes such as “Ladli Behna” and “Ladli Laxmi”, and in the run-up to the election, it increased the amount given under Ladli Behna from Rs.1,000 to Rs.1,250, with the promise that this would gradually be increased to Rs.3,000 a month.

There are 2.78 crore women voters in the State, and Ladli Behna has 1.25 crore beneficiaries; the Ladli Laxmi Yojana, launched in 2007 to provide financial assistance for the education and marriage of daughters in economically backward families, has around 1.4 crore beneficiaries. Subsidised gas cylinders and reservation in government jobs were also a part of the BJP’s manifesto.

Just before the election, the BJP government announced its decision to reserve 35 per cent seats for women in some categories of government jobs, and in its campaigns it drew attention to the Central schemes rolled out in the State for the benefit of women, including Ujjwala, PM Awas Yojana, Swachch Bharat, and Mudra.

The welfare schemes for women have also successfully enabled many State governments to buck the anti-incumbency trend, as is clear in the way the BJP returned to power in Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh, and the JMM in Jharkhand, but nowhere is this more evident than in West Bengal.

Wooing women in West Bengal

In spite of all the allegations of corruption levelled against the ruling Trinamool Congress government, the polarisation on religious lines by the rise of the BJP in the State, and even the high rate of crimes against women, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s women-oriented schemes, particularly “Lakshmir Bhandar” and “Kanyashree Prakalpa”, have ensured it the unwavering support of women voters, who account for a little over 49 per cent of the State’s total electorate of 7.2 crore.

Kanyashree Prakalpa gives an annual scholarship of Rs.1,000 each to girls between the ages of 13 and 19, and a one-time grant of Rs.25,000; it has created over 1.4 crore beneficiaries over the years. The more recent Lakshmir Bhandar scheme covers more than 2.2 crore women and gives monthly assistance of Rs.1,000 each to women from the general category and Rs.1,200 to Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe women. The latter scheme has been a game changer for the party in all elections in the past two years.

In late November, Mamata Banerjee announced that Rs.48,490 crore had been disbursed through Lakshmir Bhandar, adding that with the addition of five lakh beneficiaries, the figure would touch Rs.54,000 crore.

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The State BJP tried to counter the Trinamool by promising to raise the Lakshmir Bhandar amount to Rs.3,000, but the women showed little sign of shifting their allegiance from the Trinamool. Similarly, in the Maharashtra election, the Maha Vikas Aghadi assured women voters an increased monthly assistance of Rs.3,000 each, but the women of the State chose to stay with the Mahayuti, whose financial aid had already started flowing into their accounts.

In Jharkhand too, the BJP tried to counter the JMM’s Maiya Samman Yojana by announcing the Gogo Didi Yojana (Gogo means mother in the Santhali language), promising in its manifesto a monthly allowance of Rs.2,100 each to underprivileged women. However, it could not persuade woman voters to shift their support from the JMM. In Madhya Pradesh, the Congress, in an attempt to get the first mover advantage, announced election promises ahead of the BJP, with its pledges including a monthly payout of Rs.1,500 each to women and gas cylinders at Rs.500.

This, however, only helped the saffron party to go one up on the Congress, with its own promises for women, namely providing LPG cylinders at Rs.450, an enhanced amount under the Ladli Behna scheme, and also a Mukhyamantri Ladli Behna Awas Yojana, a housing scheme focussed on women. Evidently, for the majority of the women beneficiaries, a bird in hand is worth two in the bush.

Biswanath Chakraborty, a psephologist, termed the shifting of focus to women voters as the “womanisation” of Indian politics. Speaking to Frontline, he said: “With the rise of women voters, political parties have shifted from being male-oriented to female-oriented. More women are being fielded as candidates, more women are being used at the organisational level in parties, they are projected more in campaigns… and most political parties are keeping a separate section for women’s issues in their election manifestos.”

The situation is not likely to change in the near future. As Delhi gears up for its Assembly election in 2025, the Aam Aadmi Party is all set to roll out its Mukhyamantri Mahila Samman Yojana scheme to give women from poor families Rs.1,000 each per month. Women between 18 and 60 who do not have to pay taxes are eligible for the cash payout. The party is keen to ensure that the first instalment of the payment reaches the accounts of the women before the election.

Increase in women MPs, MLAs

One of the important byproducts of the growth of the importance of women voters is the slow but perceptible rise in the number of women MPs and MLAs.

At 38 per cent, Trinamool has one of the highest percentages of women MPs. The party had fielded 12 women in a total of 42 seats, of which 11 won. In Jharkhand, the number of women MLAs has been on the rise. From just 3 in 2000, the State now has 12. Madhya Pradesh has also been witnessing a substantial increase in the number of women legislators. With 27 women getting elected to the Assembly, which has a total strength of 230, the Madhya Pradesh Assembly for the first time has more than 10 per cent women legislators.

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However, looking at the total number of women candidates overall, it is clear that in spite of all the wooing of women voters, Indian politics remains a male-dominated affair. For instance, in Madhya Pradesh, out of a total of 2,716 candidates, only 253 were women.

The most glaring example was the Maharashtra Assembly election, where women’s empowerment was touted as one of the main issues: of the 4,136 candidates this year, only 363 (8.8 per cent) were women.

With inputs from Anand Mishra and Soni Mishra in New Delhi, Amey Tirodkar in Mumbai, R.K. Radhakrishnan in Chennai, and Vikhar Ahmed Sayeed in Bengaluru.