4 months ago
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On January 3, 2026, a little-known Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) person successful West Bengal triggered a governmental row by asking husbands to “lock up their wives” who are beneficiaries of the Lakshmir Bhandar strategy to forestall them from voting for the Trinamool Congress during the elections.
The remark sparked outrage successful the societal and governmental circles of the State. The Trinamool Congress said it exposed the BJP’s “anti-women” mindset. The BJP State committee person Kalipada Sengupta was made to apologise for his statement. Yet the contention besides brought renewed attraction to Lakshmir Bhandar, 1 of the largest currency inducement schemes of the West Bengal government.
Announced by Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee successful February 2021, conscionable months earlier the Assembly elections, the strategy proved electorally transformative. By January 2025, it had reached 2.21 crore beneficiaries — astir fractional of the State’s pistillate population. Women aged 25 to 60 person ₹1,000 per period nether the wide class and ₹1,200 nether reserved categories.
Electoral edge
The governmental interaction has been unmistakable. The strategy has helped support ample sections of the women electorate firmly aligned with the Trinamool Congress contempt superior incidents of unit against women — including the rape and execution of a doc astatine Kolkata’s R.G Kar Medical College and Hospital successful August 2025.
Data from the 2021 Assembly elections showed that astir 50% of women voters backed the Trinamool, portion lone 37% voted for the BJP. The BJP enactment is acutely alert of this sex spread and of however currency inducement schemes assistance entrench it.
Comparison with Bihar
In December 2025, erstwhile Ms. Banerjee unveiled a study paper titled ‘Unnayaner Panchali’ (The Song of Development), of her government’s show implicit the past 14 years, Lakshmir Bhandar featured prominently. Comparing it with a one-time currency payment of ₹10,000 announced successful Bihar earlier elections, the Trinamool chairperson argued that her authorities delivers sustained yearly enactment alternatively than pre-poll handouts.
“They (NDA successful Bihar) gave ₹10,000 earlier the election, and determination is simply a bulldozer raj present aft the polls,” Ms. Banerjee said.
Cash-based payment schemes catering to antithetic societal groups has go a defining diagnostic of the Banerjee administration. By her ain count, the State present runs 95 payment schemes, with much promised successful the adjacent fewer months earlier elections are announced, taking the fig of schemes good past 3 digits.
Even governmental opponents person tacitly acknowledged the interaction of specified schemes connected the electorate. Union Home Minister Amit Shah precocious assured voters successful Kolkata that nary of the Trinamool government’s payment schemes would beryllium discontinued if the BJP came to power.
While these currency inducement schemes whitethorn supply a governmental vantage to the ruling party, it is besides important to recognize their wide economical and societal interaction connected the population. West Bengal’s multidimensional poorness complaint stood astatine 11.89%, according to Multidimensional Poverty Index: A Progress Review 2023. Although poorness declined faster than successful Gujarat, the State ranked lone 13th nationally, down populous States specified arsenic U.P. and Bihar.
Real change
Cash transfers whitethorn assistance households enactment conscionable supra the poorness line, but they often neglect to make lasting structural change.
The State’s ain Kanyashree strategy — designed to trim kid matrimony done conditional currency transfers — illustrates this limitation. The strategy has astir 1 crore beneficiaries connected paper, but West Bengal continues to grounds highest fig of kid matrimony astir a decennary aft the strategy was launched.
The latest Sample Registration System information shows that 6.3% of women successful the State were joined earlier the property of 18, compared to a nationalist mean of 2.1%.
There is small uncertainty that currency inducement schemes springiness Ms. Banerjee a decisive electoral edge. But portion putting wealth straight into voters’ hands whitethorn signifier governmental outcomes, it does not automatically construe into durable societal transformation. Over the past fewer years, West Bengal has emerged arsenic a lawsuit survey of this improvement paradox.
