Maharashtra polls: Will sops like Ladki Bahin Yojana lift Mahayuti?
Shinde announced 6 schemes in the state budget for which it eked out a budget of ₹96,000 crore a year. Over ₹12,000 crore was marked for the Annapurna scheme
MUMBAI: This year Daivshala Panchal, 27, a resident of Mudkhed tehsil, Nanded, could effortlessly pay her son’s annual school fees and relieve her husband’s financial burden. “I have paid ₹5000 from my own savings and the rest – an equal sum – will be paid from the subsequent Ladki Bahin Yojana instalment after Diwali,” said Panchal. Her husband is a bank recovery agent and a Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) worker. “I think the beneficiaries will stand by the ruling alliance – most women we speak to are grateful for the government aid,” she added.

Like Panchal, Vrunda Naik, 46, from Palghar city, used the ₹7500 she received in five instalments to tide over household expenditure and has decided to vote for the Shinde-led Sena candidate. The Dungipada resident feels this was the “first time any CM had actually worked in the interest of women”.
“I am not associated with a political party, but I am determined to vote for Shinde-saheb. The scheme has helped many poor women; I don’t it was launched only to get votes, as women whose names feature in the voters’ lists but live in other states are also getting the money,” she said.
Santabai Rasve, 40, an active member of a self-help group in Nerili village, Nanded, used ₹7500 to pay the tuition fees of her son who is in the XIth standard. Expressing her appreciation for the chief minister, she said, “Like me, all women are happy with other government schemes as well, like slashing the ticket price of state transport buses by fifty percent for women. It helps them save a lot while travelling.”
All these women are beneficiaries of the ₹35,000 crore allocated for the Ladki Bahin Yojana, launched a couple of months before the assembly elections.
Post-LS plan
After the drubbing in the Lok Sabha elections, the Mahayuti government had little time to set its house right for the assembly elections. The ruling alliance got a shock when it could garner only 17 seats from the tally of at least 36 sitting MPs from three parties – Shiv Sena, BJP and NCP.
“As the Shinde-led Sena’s strike rate was the most attractive of the three, the party threw its energies to promote government schemes and luring various segments including women, youngsters, farmers, micro communities and other backward classes,” said a senior leader from the Shinde-led Shiv Sena.
The Shinde-led government announced six populist schemes in the state budget on June 28 for which it eked out a budget of ₹96,000 crore a year. Over ₹12,000 crore was marked for the Annapurna scheme, which assured free gas cylinders to over 60 lakh families in a year. Other schemes included a stipend ranging between ₹6000 and ₹10,000 for youngsters, electricity bill waiver for farmers and free pilgrimages for senior citizens.
In its six cabinet meetings over four weeks, the government took over 150 populist decisions, most of them related to the constitution of various boards and corporations associated with micro-communities and welfare schemes for Jains and Muslims. The government also ensured various communities were represented in the legislative council and Rajya Sabha.
“No section of society was left untouched. The master stroke was the waiver of toll for small vehicles at five of Mumbai’s entry points. With that, the ruling alliance has been able to elicit a positive reaction from the electorate in MMR, Pune and Nashik. It will definitely impact the polls in these regions,” a senior bureaucrat from the CMO told HT.
In this scenario, Kolhapur-based political analyst Prakash Pawar averred, the ruling alliance has been able to make up lost ground, paving the way for a neck-to-neck battle between them and the opposition.
“The corrective measures have helped them improve vote percentage in their favour by 1%, which would lead to the rise in the wining tally by at least 30 seats,” said Pawar. “Welfare schemes work more than appeasing certain castes.”
Pawar, however, added that the “present political atmosphere may change in the next few weeks of campaigning”.
Krishna Hegde, deputy leader and spokesperson for Shiv Sena, said, “The difference between MVA and us was just .3% or 2.6lakh votes in the LS elections though it translated to 14 more seats won by them. With 24 million beneficiaries of the Ladki Bahin, if 70% of them vote for us, we will get at least 40 lakh votes more than opponents, which will help us sweep the polls.”
The anti-view
Opposition leaders maintain nothing has changed on ground since the LS polls. Maharashtra Congress general secretary Sachin Sawant said that as there are no set parameters to gauge the change in the mood of people, it “would be hypothetical to assume that the anti-government sentiment has been neutralised”.
“There is uproar against the ruling alliance. Farmers are unhappy in the absence of MSP to crops and lack of benefits from crop insurance, and people are unhappy with the ruling alliance over the way the government was formed. They have realised that the schemes like Ladki Bahin are being launched to retain power,” said Sawant.
Despite the sops, the ruling parties are still anxious about the unrest among Marathas and tribals. “The assurance of the Dhangars in the Scheduled Tribes (ST) category has disturbed tribals, and the move for the sub-classification of Scheduled Castes (SC) has upset a few communities like Mahars and Buddhas. This may have an impact on the poll prospects,” a BJP leader told HT.

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