Punjab’s women voters are emerging as a new political battleground, with the AAP government’s direct cash transfer creating a new welfare connect with a constituency of more than one crore women, even as the Shiromani Akali Dal attempts to shift the conversation from what women receive from the government to what their families are losing to the state’s drug crisis.
The contrast is becoming increasingly visible. The Bhagwant Mann government has rolled out the Mukh Mantri Mawan Dhiyan Satkar Yojana, under which eligible women receive Rs 1,000 a month, while eligible Scheduled Caste women receive Rs 1,500. The scheme has an annual outlay of Rs 9,300 crore, with the government projecting that around 97 per cent of women could be covered under its eligibility criteria.
This gives the SAD campaign a different political frame from a welfare-based appeal. The AAP government’s scheme offers a tangible monthly benefit to eligible women. The emerging political contest among Punjab’s women voters is thus taking shape around two different propositions: the government’s ability to provide direct economic support and the opposition’s attempt to turn household distress, particularly the drug crisis, into a political mobilisation issue.
Harsimrat’s campaign is seeking to mobilise women around a problem that, according to the SAD’s political messaging, affects families irrespective of whether they receive a government payment.
Harsimrat is putting the drug crisis at the centre of her women-centric outreach. The political argument is that the impact of drug abuse extends beyond the individual user and reaches the household, with mothers and other women often confronting the financial, emotional and social consequences when a family member becomes addicted. Her campaign is therefore seeking to make drugs a women’s issue and a family issue, alongside demands for dignity, accountability and justice.
