WHICH BLOC'S POPULISM WILL WIN MAHARASHTRA?

Both the ruling Mahayuti and opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi are dangling a slew of welfare schemes to woo the electorate

- Anuja

Ranshet, a small village in Maharashtra's Palghar district, is 130 km away from Mantralaya, the seat of power in the state. Paddy farmer Ladki Vitthal Korda, 52, belongs to Karbat pada, a tribal hamlet in Ranshet, and is a beneficiary of a flagship cash transfer scheme for women run by the state government.

Korda had a wide grin on her face as family members joked about how she shared a name with the scheme: Majhi Ladki Bahin Yojana. Under this scheme, women belonging to families with an annual income of less than ₹2.5 lakh are entitled to financial assistance of ₹1,500 a month, which is transferred directly to their bank accounts.

So far, Korda has received ₹7,500 over two tranches. The timing was near perfect—a few months ago, her daughter-in-law gave birth to twins and the extra money came in handy for medical and childcare expenses.

"For the first time, I received money from the government directly in my account. It is good but not enough. Women should get skilled and should have employment opportunities in the village itself. Right now, there is none," she said, while using a makeshift winnowing fan to separate grain from chaff outside her home.

With a budgetary allocation of ₹46,000 crore this year, Ladki Bahin Yojana is the centrepiece in a host of populist cash transfer and welfare schemes offered by chief minister Eknath Shinde's Mahayuti government in its bid to return to power when the state goes to the polls on Wednesday. The Mahayuti comprises the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Shiv Sena (SS) and Nationalist Congress Party (NCP).

Launched just months before the election, it is similar to the Ladli Bahina Yojana in Madhya Pradesh, which helped the incumbent BJP win the state election last winter. But it is not the only scheme being offered in Maharashtra.