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Lakshmi Das and her daughter Jayanti sell sweets from door to door. At least four days a week, Lakshmi, with two heavily loaded bags in both hands, travels the 115 kilometres to Kolkata from Dhoramari, near the Bangladesh border. It takes three hours one way. Lakshmi was a beneficiary of Lakshmir Bhandar, the Trinamool Congress government’s Rs 1,500 cash transfer scheme for women, but no longer gets the money now that she has turned 60 years old.

But her daughter, Jayanti, who is over 30, unmarried and has multiple physical illnesses, gets it. “I spend Rs 1,500 on buying my medicines. Those are costly,” Jayanti says.

“But after my allowance stopped, I can only buy half of the medicines possible with this sum of money,” says Lakshmi. Lakshmi is the sole breadwinner for her family of three, with a monthly income of Rs 6,000 to Rs 7,000. Both mother and daughter fear that if this scheme is discontinued, many women like them will face hardships in managing expenses.

Lakshmi Mandal. Photo: By arrangement.

Lakshmi Mandal, a 50-year-old resident of Chetla in Kolkata, works as a house-help for a family in south Kolkata. Her candid submission was, “Whatever I earn is spent on running my family. My son does not have any income, and my husband too was a non-earning member until recently. So from medical expenses to social occasions, this money is a bit of support.”

Lakshmi lives in a slum and is worried that if the scheme stops giving her money, then it is her own medicines that she will have to stop buying. “We get nothing from the health centre. I have to buy everything from outside,” she says.

Two women from Birbhum’s Nanoor and Kirnahar, in their late 30s, wanted to be identified only by their first names, Saleha and Apa. According to Saleha, she saves this money. “I want my daughter to study as long as she wants. My husband takes away all my hard-earned money to run the family. He is a drunkard. He does not know I get this money,” she says.

Apa, a mother of three, studied till Class 7. Like many in the block, her husband too is a migrant labourer. She sells flowers at a nearby bus terminus, but the income is paltry. She waits for Rs 1,500 each month. But her fear is about something else and goes back to the 2024 rape and murder of a trainee doctor at a Kolkata medical college. “The R.G. Kar girl did not get justice. Just three days ago, a gang rape took place locally. One of the accused is known to the teenage schoolgirl. I am constantly afraid as I have three daughters, and my husband works in a different state,” she says.

As is well known, women voters have supported schemes like Lakshmir Bhandar in Bengal in large numbers. But is that all it takes for women to vote for the Trinamool Congress? In the first phase, 152 seats across 16 districts will go to the polls on April 23. The total electorate for Phase I is 3,60,77,171; 48.7% of them are women, amounting to 1,75,77,210 voters.

It is thus in the interest of all political parties to ensure that ‘Lakshmis’ bestow their support on them. Whether this cash transfer scheme should be conditional or not, and whether patriarchy is embedded in the policy model, have all been debated and will continue to be debated. But that women voters still hold the key to Bengal’s next government is not an exaggeration.

Economist and former director of the Institute of Development Studies Kolkata, Achin Chakraborty, puts it plainly: “Cash transfer is related to living standards. Across the world, this is a common practice. Be it Lakshmir Bhandar or similar schemes in other Indian states, this is part of social protection of livelihood. This aligns with a non-paternalistic economic approach, where policymakers avoid imposing their personal preferences and instead focus on improving beneficiaries’ well-being.”

Ishita Mukhopadhyay, professor of Economics at Calcutta University, notes the patriarchal design behind such schemes.

“Be it Lakshmir Bhandar or similar schemes in other states, this is a one-way cash transfer. In neoliberal economies, conditional cash transfers are standard. If you study these schemes, you will find a subtle patriarchal command. Political parties treat women as voters whose allegiance can be secured through these transfers, rather than as equal partners in the workforce or in electoral processes.”

Mukhopadhyay notes that Lakshmir Bhandar is not even a full adaptation of conditional cash transfers seen in neoliberal economies. “In our state and country, there is no monitoring, no negotiation, and no accountability from governments,” she adds.

Both Chakraborty and Mukhopadhyay referred to global practices of Universal Basic Income (UBI), which proposes providing every adult with a regular, unconditional sum of money as a matter of right. Chakraborty supports such schemes, stating, “Inequality in income and living standards is increasing every day. Sooner or later, all economies will have to adopt the UBI route. Cash transfer schemes cannot be ridiculed; they are an entitlement and a welfare right.”

Yet, the question remains: is this women’s empowerment?

Chandana Haldar of Kasba acknowledges that the monthly cash has given her the “confidence” to spend according to her own will. At the same time, the 45-year-old domestic worker says, “This is good, but some permanent income for my son or for me would have been better in the long run.”

Shefali Roy. Photo: By arrangement.

Shefali Roy, a 58-year-old widow from Kolkata who works in a departmental store, bluntly says, “I don’t have anyone. I keep this monthly assistance for rainy days. Who will look after me if I lose my job?” If this allowance is increased by other parties if they are voted to power, would she vote for them? “Not at all! They really won’t give us more. Millions of women are happy with it. The government has thought about us. We got that respect!” And what about women’s safety? “Getting public transport has become increasingly difficult after evening. My counter closes around 9.15 pm. I generally get a bus only after 30 or 40 minutes. I feel unsafe on the road; even though I am not a young woman.”

Academics Mukhopadhyay and Chakraborty do not equate the money transfer with empowerment, though for different reasons.  Chakraborty believes that cash in hand increases women’s creditworthiness. According to him, this is not empowerment per se, but it is an enabling factor. Mukhopadhyay argues, “In the absence of monitoring systems and expected outcomes, schemes like Lakshmir Bhandar cannot be considered empowerment. This is a patriarchal model, where women are not treated as equal economic agents.”

There is also an argument that governments use cash transfers to appeal to women voters and influence electoral outcomes. Critics of the West Bengal government argue that it has failed to create sufficient job opportunities and has not ensured employment for educated youth. Thus, they claim, unconditional cash transfers are used to maintain a vote bank. Interestingly, while criticising this model, both the Bharatiya Janata Party and Congress have promised Rs. 3,000 and Rs. 2,000 per month, respectively, for women in their manifestos.

The latest Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS) 2025 points to a decline in women’s participation in the organised sector. While overall female labour force participation may show modest gains – often driven by self-employment or unpaid work – the share of women in formal, secure jobs is shrinking. In other words, even as women are being courted as voters and beneficiaries, they are losing ground as workers in structured economic spaces.

Also read: What the Numbers Hide About Women’s Participation in the Labour Force

The question remains, how many women actually get the opportunity to participate in the work force? According to the World Bank’s Gender Data Portal, in India, the female labour force participation rate is 32.4%, compared to 77.6% for men in 2025.

With these statistics, India stands at a crucial juncture. In the country’s electoral democracy, women have steadily emerged as a decisive factor – one that political parties can no longer afford to ignore. However, this political recognition is not matched by economic inclusion, and thus remains incomplete.

In almost every election season, a surge of women-centric promises – cash transfers, subsidised cooking gas, free public transport, bicycles for schoolgirls, marriage assistance schemes, and enhanced maternity benefits – are announced or expanded. These promises are designed to appeal directly to women as independent voters rather than as extensions of family choices. While this suggests recognition of women as autonomous decision-makers, a deeper structural issue remains: welfare-driven strategies provide immediate relief but do not always create pathways for sustainable employment.

Cash transfers and subsidies can ease household pressures, but they rarely generate long-term economic participation. Moreover, such benefits are often directed to women not as workers or economic agents, but as custodians of family welfare. This framing, while politically effective, subtly reinforces traditional gender roles – acknowledging women’s importance but confining it within the domestic sphere.

Mukhopadhyay further noted, “There is a huge paradox between education and employment. While the number of female agricultural labourers and urban slum dwellers is increasing, there are not enough jobs in the formal sector. Women’s participation is declining there.” She argues that such schemes treat women as “loyal voters” rather than economic actors.

However, Chakraborty counters that West Bengal is ahead of other states in implementing such schemes, many of which have followed its example. “Lakshmir Bhandar is not an ill-conceived policy; it has wide appeal. Studies have not found any negative impact of these unconditional cash transfers,” he said.

India thus finds itself at a critical crossroads. The rise of women voters is a significant democratic achievement, reflecting greater awareness and assertion. Yet, without corresponding economic inclusion, this risks becoming a form of managed “empowerment”—visible, but limited.

Ultimately, empowerment cannot be measured only at the ballot box. Women must be recognised as equal participants in the economy, whose labour, skills, and aspirations shape the nation’s growth. Until then, the contrast will persist—of a woman courted as a voter every five years, but sidelined as a worker every day.

Almost all political scientists agree that no public policy is framed without some consideration of electoral gain. However, this does not necessarily mean that such schemes exist solely for electoral advantage or re-election.

Nobel laureates Amartya Sen and Abhijit Banerjee have both pointed to the effectiveness of Lakshmir Bhandar. A December 2024 study by Sen’s Pratichi Trust found that cash incentives have increased women beneficiaries’ ability to make financial decisions and improved their position within the family.

Political analysts have little doubt that women will again play a decisive role in the Bengal elections.

Several reports claim that after the Special Intensive Revision (SIR), about 61.8% of voters who were deleted or are under adjudication from Bengal’s electoral rolls are women. According to the Kolkata-based NGO Sabar Institute, which works on public-interest data analysis, a total of 61,93,386 eligible women voters may not be able to vote in the upcoming two-phase state assembly elections on April 23 and 29, 2026.

The Union Law and Justice Ministry recently informed the Lok Sabha that the gender ratio – the number of female voters per 1,000 male voters – in West Bengal is at its lowest in five years, standing at 964. The absolute number of female electors is also the lowest since 2017, when it was 3.24 crore. After the SIR, as per the final roll published on February 28, the number of female electors stands at 3.16 crore.

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