Dr. Manoj Dash, Bhubaneswar, 13 December 2024
In the Legislative Assembly elections of 2024 in Odisha and Maharashtra, the unexpected ascendancy of the BJP to power has been largely attributed to support by women voters although few other factors are said to have contributed to the party’s impressive electoral success. Significantly more percentage of women voters – 4% in Odisha and at least 6% in Maharashtra – voted for BJP in 2024 Assembly elections in comparison to what they did in 2019.
This year’s electoral success of BJP in Maharashtra is of far greater intensity and importance than its triumph in the eastern state of Odisha. It was in power in Odisha way back during 2000-2009 when it was part of a coalition government for two terms along with the BJD, which was the lead partner. The BJD which remained in power for 24 years in Odisha was convincingly pushed back in the race to power by the BJP in the 2024 Assembly elections. Although the BJP is now in power in Odisha entirely on its own, it is still part of a coalition of eight political parties in Maharashtra although only three of them are occupying almost all the seats that the Mahayuti alliance has won in the recently concluded elections. However, this time around the BJP has been able to occupy the political pole position in this important western state for which it had been dreaming since long. In 2024 it has been able to achieve a much better victory than it could muster in 2014.
It is common knowledge that Maharashtra is politically far more important than Odisha because it has 48 Lok Sabha seats while Odisha has only 21; it is twice as big as Odisha in terms of geographical spread; it has the headquarters of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) in Nagpur which is the ideological mentor of the BJP; and it has far greater financial strength than Odisha.
If one compares the status of women in Maharashtra and Odisha, the western state is also much ahead of Odisha in many key areas of development. The literacy rate of women in Maharashtra in 2024 is 78%, whereas it is 70% in Odisha; the Labour Force Participation Rate (LFPR) of women in 2022 was 38% in the western state while it was a little less than 21% in Odisha; in 2020, Maternal Mortality Rate (MMR) was only 33 in Maharashtra while it was as high as 119 in the eastern state; and last but not the least, while there were 4763 start ups led by women in Maharashtra in 2022, the number was only 500 in that year in Odisha.
In spite of these qualitative differences in terms of women’s empowerment, the common factor for electoral victory in both the states was a higher level of support by women voters although both the states are so different from each other in various sectors. Looking at the rise in aspirational goals of women in both the states in recent years, it seems quite puzzling as to why BJP has been able to garner unprecedented level of support among women voters in these two states. It is a fact that BJP was able to woo women in the recent elections mainly because it proposed very alluring schemes for women – Subhadra Yojana in Odisha and Ladki Bahin Yojana in Maharashtra.
The women centric scheme in Odisha provides 50,000 rupees over a period of five years (10,000 rupees released annually in two instalments of 5000 rupees each for 5 years), is expected to benefit more than one crore women. In Maharashtra, the number of eligible beneficiaries is around 2.5 crore women – two and half times the number of beneficiaries in Odisha! Each beneficiary will receive at least 1,500 rupees every month, which amounts to 18,000 rupees annually, and in a period of five years, a beneficiary will receive a total cash support of 90,000 rupees. The core objective of both the schemes is providing financial and social support to women who are facing constant hardships.
In terms of quantum of cash support, the Maharashtra offer looks much better because an eligible family will at least receive a cash support of 1,500 rupees every month if only one woman per family is selected to get this support. If more than one from a family become eligible, the quantum of support will become substantially more. While this financial support may not help women in either state to set up businesses, the availability of this additional cash in their family’s kitty would be of much greater help for socio-cultural purposes in Maharashtra than in Odisha. It may not be a substantial amount to lift the beneficiary families out of poverty and carry them to safer shores where the families would enjoy much better social and economic status for the rest of their lives. Even if one considers that the target women have the necessary capabilites and vision to invest this additional amount for their economic betterment in the future, the amount of support in either state is inadequate to place a clear economic advantage in the hands of women who are going to benefit from this scheme. Many research studies indicate that women want control over their earnings, they want fair and secure livelihoods, but the quantum of these transfers are not disruptive enough to ensure economic independence for women. In a deeply patriarchal society, for women to actually benefit from such schemes, they would need systemic empowerment, continuous hand holding, suitable skilling, expert guidance and proactive support by people in the government. Giving a little bit of money here and there alone is not going to be of much help unless a well-designed support system is made available to them to set up successful and profitable micro-enterprises for generating adequate income over a considerable period of time.
The central question here is, whether women voted BJP only because they got lured by a short term financial gain or they spotted something of far greater advantage such as higher overall freedom? Neither BJP nor its ideological mentor RSS are known for championing the cause of empowering women. RSS has been particularly regressive in its thought process on women. Its current chief has gone on record giving insensitive statements on many occasions in the past about women. RSS doesn’t have a single woman in its rank and file. Rather than mainstreaming women in its pivotal organization, it has a separate entity for women that admits only women as its members. Recently, the RSS chief also gave a statement on the need for having more children per couple as society would face extinction if population doesn’t grow above the replacement rate. This kind of an opinion doesn’t allow agency to women to exercise control over their own reproductive choices and rights. Out of BJP’s 240 MPs in the current Lok Sabha, only 30 are women. The number of women MPs from BJP was 41 in 2019 out of 303. These are not at all impressive numbers to place decisive political control in the hands of women. While the party is unleashing a number of women-centric schemes for women’s empowerment across India, it is reluctant to share real power with women.
The reluctance to share greater political power with women would invariably mean that the ruling party doesn’t wish women to gain real power although it wishes more women to cast their votes in its favour so that it can capture political power and ensure its continuity in governance. Therefore, it appears more certain that BJP’s narrative of women’s empowerment doesn’t have any transformative intent. If women choose to exercise their voting rights in favour of the BJP, they can always do so. However, they should also be aware that ending gender based violence, bringing an end to patriarchal practices, ensuring more women enter the work force, and asserting freedom to exercise their agency to have primary control over their own lives are not going to be facilitated by the BJP. For achieving these rights, women need to continue their prolonged battles within the family, in communities, at workplaces, and in the political arena to gain greater freedom and dignity for themselves which continues to elude millions of women in India although the Constitution of India guaranteed these rights to them since its adoption.
