Why Nitish Kumar’s Rs 10,000 scheme is not swaying women voters in Bihar

“The last two months have been very stressful,” complained Baby Singh, a Jeevika member since 2015, as she sat in her grocery store in Bhitha Bazar village. “Every member comes to me asking where is her money. So many new women have filled up forms to become members.”

The Bihar government rolled out the Mukhyamantri Mahila Rojgar Yojana on August 29. The scheme aims to provide Rs 10,000 to one woman from every family as seed money to start a business. Over one crore Bihari women have got the money so far. To execute the fund transfer in such little time, the state government is using the Jeevika network of women’s self-help groups.

As a bookkeeper in charge of about 120 Jeevika groups in and around her village, Singh has to perform the tough task of explaining to irregular and new members that they will have to wait for some time before they get their Rs 10,000.

The timing of the scheme – just weeks ahead of Assembly elections – has led many to compare it with the pre-election cash handouts for women in Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra. Notably, the ruling governments in both states had returned to power, reportedly riding on women’s support.

Baby Singh, too, said that recipients of the money were “very happy” with Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and would vote for him. Then, she turned to Tabassum Khatun, who was standing outside her shop, and asked about her vote. “Nitish Kumar has given me money so I will vote for him,” she replied.

However, when this reporter met Khatun again an hour later, this time at her husband’s plastic goods shop in a neighbouring village, she articulated a different view. “10,000 rupees cannot buy my vote,” she countered. “I don’t want this money. I need work.”

Not only Khatun but women across Bihar asserted that the cash handout will not influence the way they vote. Most beneficiaries told Scroll that Rs 10,000 is too little to start a business. On the other hand, those left out of the last-minute policy are angry with the Nitish Kumar government.

Implementation woes

“I heard the scheme is over,” said Ram Pari of Bindhi village in north Bihar’s Sitamarhi district. “Everybody got the money, except me. In my group, they say those who have not got it yet will not get it in the future. Won’t I feel bad?”

Ram Pari has been a Jeevika didi for two years. Four other women in the village, all regular members of their self-help groups, had not received the money either.

In Bedaulia village of Vaishali, Manju Devi was also anguished about being left out despite her decade-long association with Jeevika. “Forms of the poor are not being accepted but the well off are benefiting,” the 56-year-old claimed.

An Opposition candidate visiting the village added to her misery by telling her that the scheme was a “trap”. He claimed that the money was a loan which beneficiaries would eventually have to repay.

While that is not true, it shows the confusion that the policy has caused on the ground. Much of it is because the scheme is fundamentally different from the pre-poll cash handouts women got in Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra.

In those states, all women in the eligible age bracket receive monthly payments. But Bihar is offering a one-time assistance only to women in the existing Jeevika network. Though the government is promising further financial help of up to two lakh rupees for those who start viable businesses, most voters are not looking that far into the future.

The state has over three crore women voters. Just over a third of them have received this money till now, according to a government press release. While the Opposition claims this will influence the vote, women Scroll spoke to were less enthusiastic.

“I will buy a goat or two,” Urmila Devi said disinterestedly as she sat with a group of women on the steps of a house in Bedaulia. “What else can one do with 10,000 rupees?”

Asked if the money had convinced her to vote for Nitish Kumar, she responded sharply: “Have I taken anything personally from him that I must give him my vote? I have always voted for Lalu Prasad Yadav. Now I want to see his son, Tejashwi, become the chief minister.”

Like Urmila Devi, Opposition voters across Bihar are not shifting loyalties just because of the cash handout. On the contrary, some who did not receive it have decidedly turned away from the government because they believe that they are being discriminated against.

“Yadav women are being filtered out,” alleged Rampravesh Yadav, a farmer from Kalyan Bigha village in Nalanda. “This government looks at people’s caste before doing anything. Such casteism is rampant here.”

The Opposition is echoing these complaints. Priyanka Bharti, a national spokesperson for the Rashtriya Janata Dal, thinks the scheme will “backfire” on the state government.

“Women in Yadav and Dalit bastis tell me they have been deliberately excluded,” she said. “Women are not as stupid as some people think. Many who took the money are also asking why it was given just before elections and not earlier.”

Neeraj Kumar, a spokesperson from Nitish Kumar’s Janata Dal (United), vehemently dismissed the allegations of discrimination. “This is not how the chief minister has ever run the government,” he said.

Nitish Kumar’s women voters

The JD(U) spokesperson listed the pro-women policies that Nitish Kumar has pursued during his two decades in power. Independent analysts, too, agree that the chief minister has assiduously cultivated the women’s vote throughout his political career.

“He is the first Indian politician to have systematically created his own woman constituency,” argued Ashish Ranjan, a researcher from Bihar conducting election research in the state with his Data Action Lab for Emerging Societies. “First, he increased girl child enrolment in schools by giving them cycles and uniforms. After that, he offered cash incentives to get them to complete school and college. And finally, he provided them with reservations in government jobs.”

This is, perhaps, partly why many women openly say that they will vote for Nitish Kumar. But the new scheme has little to do with this political choice.

“It’s not as if he has given me 10,000 rupees so I will vote for him,” explained Babita Devi of Kalyan Bigha, Kumar’s ancestral village. “I have been his voter for many years because he is working for the development of villages.”

A few houses down the street, Neeru Devi, who has purchased three goats with her Rs 10,000, also voiced support for the chief minister. However, she explicitly delinked her voting preference from the cash handout. “Even if I had not got the money, I would have voted for him,” she added. “I believe he deserves another term.”

These responses suggest that a loyal chunk of the women’s vote continues to be with Nitish Kumar and would have been so even without the new scheme. However, Neeraj Kumar of the JD(U) contends that the Rs 10,000 will also bring in new voters.

Nitish Kumar’s measures to help women obtain education and employment had been largely restricted to the lower middle class in Bihar, he reasoned. The 10,000 rupees, coupled with the government offering 125 units of free electricity since August, was, in his view, helping the party find new women voters among the state’s poorest sections.

JD(U)’s opponents beg to differ, though. Dipankar Bhattacharya, general secretary of the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) Liberation, claimed that the scheme was brought in by the state government to tackle discontent among women voters over issues like unemployment and inflation.

“There was a lot of anger among women,” he said. “Even Jeevika didis were going on strikes. This new scheme is only meant to be a damage control exercise. It can tame the anger a bit, but cannot create any new wave.”

Ashish Ranjan, the researcher quoted earlier, agrees.

“He [Nitish Kumar] has always had the edge among women,” he noted. “The new scheme has reduced the anti-incumbency against him to some extent. Without it, he would have been under greater threat because the Mahagathbandhan is offering women 2,500 rupees every month.”

Read Scroll’s ground reports from Bihar here.