Political parties lure women voters with cash transfer promises

In a bid to woo women voters in Assam, the BJP and Congress have proposed competing cash transfer packages. In Assam, the BJP sankalp patra has promised that direct bank transfers to women will be increased to Rs 3,000 per month against a target of Rs 40 lakh under the Orunodoi scheme, a flagship initiative to empower women economically. The Congress, in its Assam manifesto, promised to transfer a stipulated amount to every woman’s account without any conditions and to transfer Rs 50,000 to women entrepreneurs. At the national level, the Narendra Modi government has implemented quotas for women in the legislature starting from the 2029 general elections. While Assam and Puducherry recorded record-high overall voter turnout (85.9% and 89.9% respectively), male voter turnout was also the highest ever in these two states. However, Kerala’s 75.2% male voter turnout was well below the state’s all-time high of 80.5% in the 1987 assembly polls. Massive participation of women voters in these states/Union Territories is not a new phenomenon. In Puducherry, in 18 of the total 30 Lok Sabha and Assembly elections held since 1964, women’s turnout was higher than men’s. In Kerala, in 9 of the 34 Assembly/Assembly elections held since 1957, women’s turnout was higher than men’s. During the 2016 assembly elections, female turnout exceeded male turnout for the first time in Assam. Since then, women voters have shown better participation than men, except in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, when women and men turned out at exactly the same turnout. This means that in 4 of the 33 Lok Sabha/Assembly elections in the northeastern state, a higher proportion of women voted.