Polls and freebies: Who doesn’t love cash transfers but are these really the answer?
Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. Results of the assembly elections in Maharashtra and Jharkhand brought the incumbents back to power. Election outcomes are difficult to analyse, given the complexity of India’s electoral system, dynamics of rival parties and the role played by caste, class, religion and local factors.
While psephologists and political scientists undertake that exercise, two important determinants have emerged. The first is the role of cash transfers and second is the emergence of women as a decisive class of voters. It is difficult to disentangle their roles in deciding poll outcomes, but the fact that these have been offered as explanations by experts, and in some cases by political parties themselves, necessitates a discussion.
While the Majhi Ladki Bahin Yojana in Maharashtra offered ₹1,500 per month to women aged 21 to 65 years, the Maiya Samman Yojana in Jharkhand offered ₹1,000 per month to women aged 21 to 49 years. Even in Haryana, the incumbent Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government promised ₹2,100 per month to women. West Bengal government’s Lakshmir Bhandar provides ₹1,200 to SC/ST women and ₹1,200 to all other women above age 18.
The Mukhyamantri Ladli Bahna Yojana of Madhya Pradesh offers ₹1,250 per month to women in the state. In almost all cases, the schemes were initiated just before elections and the incumbent governments returned to power. There are now 10 states that have either implemented or announced such schemes.
The list includes Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Delhi, Andhra Pradesh, Assam and Himachal Pradesh. On the point of women emerging as a separate category in themselves across caste, class, religion and region, there may be some truth to it. There is evidence, even though
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