Maharashtra polls: Why women matter

Deep inside the hinterland of Beed, life runs in cycles of deprivation. Rekhatai Jadhav, is used to the hardships of life, expertly squireling away petty cash from daily expenses for a rainy day — at once both necessary and ironic, given the arid climate and the frequent droughts that squeeze the local economy dry, and force people like her husband and brother into wage labour and migration.
This July, though, things started looking up a bit. Jadhav enrolled in a new scheme, the Mukhyamantri Majhi Ladki Bahin Yojana, and from the following month, started receiving ₹1,500 a month in her bank account. The money meant the world for a family with few steady sources of income, forming a thin but durable (and government-backed) cushion between poverty and destitution. Jadhav, a Dalit, had sat out the summer’s Lok Sabha elections even as fears about the future of the Constitution swept her village and prompted many she knew to vote for the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA). As a middle-aged woman who had to run her family of four as well as tend to ailing elderly relatives, Jadhav had no time for politics, but by the time the assembly elections rolled around in November, three tranches of the Ladki Bahin scheme had trickled into her account. She was a convert, as were her sister and other women friends in the village – all making the early morning queue at the local polling booth on November 20.
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As the electronic voting machines (EVMs) were opened and tallied in Maharashtra on Saturday, people such as Jadhav appeared to be the defining story of assembly elections that were considered touch-and-go even three months ago but which eventually turned out to be overwhelmingly one sided. And no move was quite as responsible for netting the ordinary woman’s support as the Ladki Bahin.
Built on the model of the phenomenally successful Ladli Behna Yojana in neighbouring Madhya Pradesh, the scheme was launched just weeks after the Mahayuti’s drubbing in the Lok Sabha polls. The initial clamour in the rural heartland for enrolment was the first sign that the direct cash transfer to women could be the vehicle for the Mahayuti’s revival. The state government quietly and efficiently worked on expanding the net of beneficiaries even as the MVA cried foul over the fiscal burden and complained that the assembly polls were delayed to allow more money to come into women’s bank accounts. The scheme became the centrepiece of the BJP-led Mahayuti’s welfare pitch, and the party didn’t shy away even when it cast a shadow on other government payments. In rally after rally, Mahayuti leaders underlined the transformation that the regular tranche of money had brought, and how an Opposition government would stop the Ladki Bahin scheme. In an otherwise prosperous state that is riven by inequality, the money transfer worked as a temporary, but crucial, salve.
By targeting women such as Jadhav directly with a direct, personalised campaign, the Mahayuti built a new demographic of supporters who helped it script a remarkable comeback, flatten regional vagaries and ideological worries, and create a fresh base that rose above caste and faith. After complaining for months, the MVA tried to devise its own version of the scheme in its manifesto but it was too late in the day.
In impact and significance, the role of the Ladki Bahin was no less important that than of the PM-Kisan, the direct farm transfer scheme that was implemented six months before the 2019 Lok Sabha polls and helped blunt farm anger that was hurting the BJP in the heartland at the time.
Towards the twilight of the campaign, the Mahayuti pushed its outreach into another gear. Led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s “Ek Hain Toh Safe Hain (if we stay united, we’ll be safe)” slogan, the Mahayuti started speaking about Hindu unity to argue that Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and other backward classes (OBCs) should remain united and not fall for the Opposition’s promises of a caste census. As the campaign gained a distinctly communal tinge, the Mahayuti effectively used the Hindu unity pitch to tide over local incongruencies such as that between Marathas and OBCs in Marathwada, or the worry over the caste census and Constitution among Dalits in Vidarbha.
In contrast, the MVA didn’t respond adequately to the Mahayuti’s rapidly evolving pitch, holding on to its Lok Sabha demands of a caste census and protection of the Constitution – issues that had only limited traction in a local contest. Its response to the twin prongs of the Mahayuti – gender and faith – were stillborn attempts at rousing regional pride by the Shiv Sena (UBT) and NCP (SP).
In the end, the difference was clear – the largest assembly election win in Maharashtra in 30 years, the best-ever performance by the BJP, the worst-ever performance by the Congress, and possible ruination of two regional stalwarts. And standing behind this record-busting show will be ordinary women such as Jadhav, often overlooked in the bustle of the campaign trail but who emerged as the ultimate kingmaker.