Parties woo women voters with cash transfer promises | India News
To woo women voters in Assam, the BJP and the Congress have made competitive cash transfers. In Assam, the BJP Sankalp Patra promised to raise monthly direct bank transfers to women to Rs 3,000 under the Orunodoi scheme and target 40 lakh “Lakhpati Baideos”, a major initiative to empower women economically. The Congress, in its manifesto for Assam, promised a fixed amount in each woman’s account and an unconditional bank transfer of Rs 50,000 for women entrepreneurs. At the national level, the Narendra Modi government has already moved to implement women’s quota in legislatures from the 2029 general elections. Overall voter turnout touched an all-time high (85.9% and 89.9% respectively) in Assam and Puducherry, with male voter turnout also at an all-time high in these two states. However, Kerala’s male voter turnout of 75.2% was much lower than the all-time high of 80.5% recorded in the state’s 1987 assembly elections. Massive participation of women voters in these states/UTs is not a new phenomenon. In Puducherry, out of a total of 30 Lok Sabha and Assembly elections held since 1964, women had a higher turnout than male voters in 18. In Kerala, out of the 34 parliamentary/assembly elections held in the state since 1957, women had higher participation in nine. In the 2016 assembly elections, women’s voter turnout surpassed male voters in Assam for the first time. Since then, female voters have shown better participation than their male counterparts, except for the 2019 Lok Sabha elections when female and male voters were exactly the same. It has seen higher female voter turnout in four Lok Sabha/Vidhan Assembly elections out of 33 North Eastern states.
