West Bengal Elections 2026 | BJP manifesto likely to promise Rs 3000 per month for women voters

New Delhi: Taking a leaf out of its own book from states like Uttar Pradesh and Assam, the BJP is set to announce a monetary benefit for women in its manifesto in Bengal.

A monthly assistance of Rs 3000 is likely to be promised to women under a scheme called Lakshmi Bhandar scheme, party leaders said. The BJP’s manifesto is set to be released in the first week of April.

In Assam, the party is banking on a similar scheme called Orunodoi to remain in power. Under the scheme, women are promised Rs 1250 per month. In the first week of March, an amount of Rs 9000 was given to over 40 lakh women beneficiaries. Of these, Rs 5,000 was disbursed as the combined monthly installments from January to April, and the remaining Rs 4000 was a bonus for Rongali Bihu, celebrated in the state in April.

The state also runs its own version of the Lakhpati Didi Scheme, called Mukhyamantri Mahila Udyamita Abhiyan, where SHGs of 10 women are provided Rs 1 lakh yearly or Rs 10,000 per woman to start a business; CM Himanta has promised to increase that amount to Rs 25,000 per woman if he is voted to power.

In fact, the schemes of monetary assistance to women that the BJP has now perfected in several states was originally launched in Assam in October 2020; the Orunodoi scheme was a flagship poverty alleviation program of the state that provided a monthly stipend to families. In 2021, the amount was increased to Rs 1,000 for the beneficiaries.

Monetary assistance to women, especially for women from below the poverty line families as well as widows, has proven to be a game-changer for the BJP in the past. In 2022, the party’s government in Uttar Pradesh deposited Rs 500 in their accounts of more than 2 crore women for the first time. While the BJP’s tally went down, the scheme proved to be a game-changer and helped it retain power.

In Madhya Pradesh, where the party had been in power for four consecutive terms, the turning point for the party came after the launch of the Ladli Behna scheme under which then CM Shivraj Chouhan gave women Rs 1250 monthly.

In Bengal, the BJP is also promising to provide a monthly allowance of Rs 3,000 to the unemployed youth of the state in its manifesto, and will vow to clear all outstanding dearness allowances of government employees within just 45 days of the formation of the government, sources in the party said. The party is also going to promise a huge industrial park built on the 1,000 acres of land in Singur, and 4 new cities in the state named after Dr Bidhan Chandra Roy.