Ladki Bahin: Bribe or game-changer in Maharashtra?

In the next month, as the high-stakes Maharashtra elections takes centre stage, two words will dominate most conversations: ‘Ladki Bahin’. The flagship government scheme which provides Rs 1,500 per month to women in households whose annual income is less than Rs 2,50,000 has become a major talking point and raises the crucial political question: will the monies that have been put in the bank accounts of more than 2 crore women since August this year be enough to shake off any anti-incumbency against the ruling Mahayuti alliance in the state?
This isn’t the first time governments at the state or centre across parties have offered pre-poll sops in the form of cash hand-outs to specific groups. But never before have the pay-out deliveries been so sudden, brazen and unmindful of financial consequences just before an important election. By the time voting is done next month, a majority of the beneficiary women will have received Rs 7,500 in their account, including a pre-Diwali ‘bonus’ announced just before the election code of conduct came into effect, with a monthly price tag of approximately Rs 3,700 crore or around Rs 46,000 crore annually. Maharashtra’s debt projection has shot upto Rs 7.8 lakh crores as a result of what a senior bureaucrat calls, ‘tijori kholo’ (open the treasury) politics.
There are three ways to look at the Ladki Bahin Yojana. The first is to see it as clever politics designed to catch the opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi completely off guard. The defeat in the Lok Sabha elections, where the ruling alliance won just 17 of the 48 seats, prompted the Eknath Shinde government to look for new ways to attract key groups. Women and youth were the two target vote banks, one given cash hand-outs, the other a ‘Ladka Bhau’ cash assistance stipend for unemployed youth needing financial help. If, in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, the opposition made ‘samvidhan khatre main hai’ (constitution in danger) its calling card, now the Shinde government has managed to at least temporarily reset the narrative around its cash-driven schemes.
Alternately, the Ladki Bahin programme must be seen as another worrying sign of a ‘whatever it takes’ power-grab mindset. The last five years have seen Maharashtra become the country’s most politically unstable state. Three governments in five years, a chief minister being sworn in by stealth at the crack of dawn, two regional parties being split, MLAs switching sides with the lure of ministerial perks, Maharashtra has come to symbolise the complete moral collapse of Indian politics. Terms like ‘washing machine’ and ‘khokhe chi sarkar’ (one ‘khokha’ is equivalent to one crore) are now part of the common political lexicon in the state, a reflection of how money power and backroom deal-making has totally corroded the politics of the state. There are no ideological divides left: around one third of the state’s legislators have been in more than one party over the last 15 years.
The third and perhaps most logical way to look at the cash hand-out schemes is through the prism of competitive ‘revdi’ politics that can be potentially economically ruinous. In 2022, Prime Minister Narendra Modi cautioned voters against a ‘freebie’ culture, saying it was ‘very dangerous’ for the country. “People of ‘revdi’ culture feel that by distributing free revdis to people, they can buy them. Together we need to defeat this thinking. Revdi culture needs to be removed from the country’s politics,” insisted Modi.
Then, the prime minister’s attack was on the Congress and its promised cash ‘guarantees’ in states like Karnataka and Himachal Pradesh and the AAP’s claims of providing free electricity and water in states like Delhi and Punjab. Just two years on, the BJP, which is part of the ruling alliance in Maharashtra, is seeking credit for the Ladki Bahin initiative by claiming that its cash benefits will empower the women of Maharashtra. But the line between ‘bribing’ voters and ‘empowering’ them is a thin one, especially when a scheme is pushed through just months ahead of an election with the sole purpose of enticing voters to switch sides.
Women in particular have become the core constituency for cash-driven welfare schemes. In 2023, Shivraj Singh Chouhan was seen to have turned around the Madhya Pradesh election with his Ladli Behna scheme, providing cash benefits similar to those offered now by the Maharashtra government. In its 2024 manifesto, the Congress promised an annual Rs one lakh deposit to poor women’s accounts across the country. “If you are below the poverty line, then every year Rs 1 lakh ‘khatakhat khatakhat aata rahega’,” assured Congress leader Rahul Gandhi.
Then, the ‘khatakhat’ promises of Mr Gandhi were lampooned by the BJP as an example of irresponsible political behaviour; now, the ‘phataphat’ delivery of cash by the Shinde government is being hailed as a political ‘game-changer’. The hypocrisy is staggering. When does a ‘revdi’ become a ‘masterstroke’ and when is it to be seen for what it has become: a blatant attempt to ‘buy’ votes? When is a beneficiary extolled as a ‘labharti’ and when does she become a burden on the exchequer? In Tamil Nadu, for example, the original state where a freebie culture was almost institutionalised, successive governments were criticised for their laundry list of free offerings: from cell phones to colour televisions, attractive consumer goodies were offered in every election. Paradoxically, the ‘freebies’ didn’t prevent Tamil Nadu from having one of the fastest growing economies in the country.
Maharashtra, too, still attracts the most foreign direct investment in the country.
The socio-economic fallout of a freebie culture is contestable: should governments only waive off loans of influential corporates and not of distressed farmers? Why shouldn’t poor women get income support in tough times? The real issue, though, is of misplaced priorities. Truth is, the cash hand-outs being doled out in states like Maharashtra are only designed to compensate for a larger governance deficit that stares governments across parties. For five years, those in power fail to invest in genuine welfare projects that matter – be it quality education or health facilities—but then, faced with a tough election, offer direct cash benefits to offset mounting anger against unkept promises.
The voter too is increasingly transactional: why should she vote for a specific party nominee if she isn’t certain that the candidate will be loyal to the party post-election? Better then to simply avail of ‘cash and carry’ politics. As one Ladki Bahin beneficiary woman in a Mumbai slum told me rather bluntly: “Irrespective of who I vote for or whoever comes to power in Maharashtra, at least no government will be able to stop the Ladki Bahin scheme now.” If the netas thought they were being wily, the canny voters may well outsmart them in the end!
(Rajdeep Sardesai is a senior journalist and author. His new book: 2024: The Election That Surprised India will be out later this month)