The recently concluded elections to the Bihar legislative assembly need to be seen from a gendered perspective, and for solid reasons: at 71.77 per cent, the turnout of female voters in the election is the highest since 1951 and is nearly 10 per cent higher than that of male voters. Women’s votes are 14 per cent more than men’s in seven of the state’s 38 districts. Women voters outnumbered men in at least 130 of Bihar’s 243 assembly constituencies. Compared to the 2020 state election, there were 4.4 million more women voters this time, according to the Election Commission of India data.
Experts attributed the ruling National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government’s landslide victory to this high turnout of women voters. NDA won 114 of the 130 constituencies where women voters were more than male voters. Political analysts believe that women-centric programmes of the state government led by Chief Minister Nitish Kumar drove women voters to polling booths to vote for the government.
The scheme that has turned out to be the decisive factor is the Mukhyamantri Mahila Rojgar Yojana, declared just be-fore the elections. The direct cash transfer scheme offers a support of up to Rs 2.10 lakh to aspiring woman entrepreneur. To begin with, the government transferred Rs 10,000 as seed money to 15.1 million women’s accounts. The beneficiaries constituted around 42 per cent of the state’s women voters.
The scheme promises financial aid to one woman from every family in Bihar. Eligibility criteria are minimal: the applicant and her husband must not be income tax payers. It means women from socio-economically backward and marginalised sections are entitled to the scheme. Bihar is the poorest state of the country, with a per capita annual gross state domestic product of Rs 66,828 (gross state domestic product or GSDP at current price, Rs 5,569 per month in 2023-24). Women are the poorest among the poor with nearly 40 per cent less per capita GSDP than men. So the Rs 10,000 transferred to their account to start an enterprise is lucrative. It also comes with the promise of further installments. An activist describes the scheme as the most attractive pre-poll offer ever made to women in Bihar. Never before, he notes, has such a direct cash incentive of Rs 10,000 been announced for women ahead of elections. He calls the scheme a potential “game changer”.
Former minister and senior Janata Dal (United) leader Neeraj Kumar tells Down To Earth that the Nitish Kumar, during his long tenure of 2005-25 as chief minister…
This article was originally published in the December 1-15, 2025 print edition of Down To Earth