BJP banks on votes of women who benefited from welfare schemes in MP
women votes in Madhya Pradesh in the forthcoming assembly elections, banking just not on the passage of the Women’s Reservation Bill but several welfare schemes of the Centre and the Shivraj Singh Chouhan government in the state.
However, these women voters are also impacted by the anti-incumbency of almost two decades of the BJP in power, inflation, high unemployment and resentment among farmers, making this a tough election for the BJP.
Going by the 2018 assembly election figures, there are approximately 5.05 crore voters in Madhya Pradesh.
Of these, 2.4 crore (or 47.8%) are women voters. BJP maintains that the welfare schemes have ensured a sizable chunk of the women votes for it as they are the direct beneficiaries of most of them.
In the case of Madhya Pradesh, Chouhan has aggressively courted this vote base with his own welfare schemes that add heft to those rolled out by the Narendra Modi government.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been flagging the passage of the Women’s Reservation Bill at every election rally in all the four poll-bound states. BJP has claimed credit for getting this landmark legislation, which had been pending for years, passed in Parliament.
He also mentioned the welfare schemes –– Ujjwala, PM Awas Yojana, Swachh Bharat, Mudra and others –– and underlined that these directly benefit women. However, at his September 25 rally in Bhopal and another rally in Gwalior on October 2, the prime minister did not mention the welfare schemes for women by the Chouhan government which surprised some of the state unit leaders.
Chouhan had launched the Ladli Lakshmi scheme in MP in 2006 and upgraded it with approximately 1.4 crore girls as beneficiaries at present.
