Did women-oriented schemes work for BJP in Assam

Assam’s women voters played a key role in the victory of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the 2021 Assembly elections in the state, according to both, party members and poll data.

The various welfare schemes offered to women voters, both during the term of the incumbent government as well as during the run-up to the elections, seemed to have won them over to the party.

This, in spite of the fact that this election saw fewer women candidates being fielded by parties across the board.

Some 23,374,087 voters cast their ballots in the three-phase election. These included 11,823,286 male, 11,550,403 female and 398 voters from the  third gender. Some 49.35 per cent of voters in Assam are women according to Election Commission of India (ECI) data.

The ECI data also showed that:

1. The turnout in the first phase was 80.12 per cent female and 79.76 per cent male.
2. It was 81 per cent male and 80.94 per cent female in the second round.
3. It was 85.36 per cent male and 85.05 per cent female in the third round.

Overall, 82.5 per cent men voted in the elections, compared to 82.4 per cent women.

There were just 74 women among the 946 candidates fielded by all parties. The Indian National Congress fielded nine candidates and the BJP seven. Newer regional parties like the Assam Jatiya Parishad also fielded seven women candidates.

Wooing women

The BJP government floated various schemes for the women of Assam that may have tilted women in the party’s favour.

Incumbent Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal launched various schemes February 11, 2021 including:

• Vistarita Kanaklata Mahila Sabalikaran Yojana under which a capital subsidy of Rs 50,000 each and a revolving fund of Rs 25,000 each will be paid to Self Help Groups (SHGs).
• Aideu Handique Mahila Sanman Achoni, under which an unmarried woman or a divorcee between the age of 35-60 years will get Rs 300 per month.
• Jeevika Sakhi Express under which a ‘Jeevika Sakhi’ or community resources person will get a two-wheeler.

The most-talked about scheme of all was the Orunodoi, arguably the largest and most ambitious government welfare programme Assam has ever seen.

A direct bank transfer scheme, Orunodoi targets women as the “primary caretakers of the household”. Only those whose composite household income is less than Rs 200,000 per annual income are eligible.

Priority groups include families with specially-abled members and divorced, widowed, separated, unmarried women and the poor who have not been covered by the National Food Security Act.

The official notification of the scheme set a target of 15,000 beneficiaries in Assembly constituencies with a population of less than 200,000 and 17,000 in the rest. Assam has 126 Assembly constituencies.

According to data presented in the state budget last February, more than 1.7 million women have so far received cash assistance under the scheme.

The BJP promised that three million deserving families will be paid financial support of Rs 3,000 per month under the scheme.

Bijuli Kalita Medhi, vice president, Mahila Morcha, Assam BJP, said:

Women are a critical factor in making societies more prosperous. Economic empowerment of women is highly connected with poverty reduction as women tend to invest more of their earnings in their children and communities. Hence both, the Centre and state governments attach great importance to woman empowerment.

Medhi added that the BJP-led state government had constituted a large number of woman SHGs and provided easy finance to them.

Women’s rights activist and writer Junu Bora said the BJP used women’s sentiments by wooing them with the Orunodoi scheme, free bicycles to girl students after Class 8 and free two wheelers to college-going girls.

Assam Mahila Sangha President Asomi Gogoi agreed with Bora, stating that most women voters in the state were not politically conscious. “The BJP took advantage of this. It used various monetary schemes as inducements. The opposition too fail to create political awareness among women voters of Assam,” she said.

Ullupi Das Baishya is the president of the Nisha SHG based in Bakuajari village of Nalbari district under the Barama constituency.

“We received a Rs 200,000 loan from the bank for our SHG. Many SHGs have received aid from the BJP government. We felt the party would provide much more for needy poor women in the future. So we voted for it,” she said.

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