By Tirthankar Mitra
KOLKATA: Amid rhetoric, realignment and recriminations, women voters of West Bengal have emerged as a powerful force over the past decade as their decisions increasingly determine the fate of dispensations. Trinamool Congress whose writ has been running over the state for the past 15 years has the maximum number of women candidates in the poll fray.
In all, 41 women legislators represented TMC in the outgoing state legislature. Headed by the firebrand Mamata Banerjee, this political outfit has fielded more women than other political parties across the country.
it is 13.94 per cent of the House strength well above the national average of 8 per cent of their state Assemblies. Thanks to TMC, women voters are no longer playing a mere supporting role in the electoral calculus.
There are 3,76,00,611 women voters in West Bengal, according to Election Commission data. All contestants of the coming elections will have a go at this group to turn the political tide in their favour.
The flagship social welfare project of the TMC government, Lakshmir Bhander has altered political allegiance and material realities. Launched in 2021 it has 2.2 crore beneficiaries and allocation running into tens of thousands of crores helped TMC reap rich political dividends in successive elections and led to shrinking of Opposition space.
Lakshmir Bhander is more than an economic intervention. It is a socio-political recalibration
The scheme has enabled its recipients to become beneficiaries owing to their gender. In its wake, the ballot has become an instrument of self -assertion for women voters.
The numbers speak for themselves. If TMC has fielded 52 women candidates, the Left has 34 women nominees while such representatives number 35 and 33 for the Congress and BJP respectively in 2026 state Assembly elections.
Small wonder, the TMC has raised its voice for the large number of women voters names being deleted. Chandrima Bhattacharya, heading the women’s wing of state TMC said that the deletion of names of women voters is aimed to dent her party’s vote bank.
But social welfare schemes for women in the state are not principal shift in women’s vote in TMC’s favour. Women voters of West Bengal have long stood out for their sophisticated political judgement.
Their decision making manifests itself in family discussions, social networks and finally in the seclusion of the polling booth. It is profoundly political shaped by changing agreement between the state and female citizens.
But the support of women voters is not going be taken for granted. It is neither uniform nor predictable.
The recipients of Lakshmir Bhander, Kanyasree, Rupasree to name a few of the women centric social welfare schemes do not guarantee women votes. They ensure that the presence of women is a honoured one in TMC’s political landscape.
To corner a major share of women voters, there is a subtle and significant shift in the poll campaign. The campaign manager cannot lose sight of the fact that priorities of women voters of Kolkata will differ from the same of their gender in the rural areas.
This diversity calls for a more nuanced understanding of women’s issues. The women voters group is heterogeneous and the candidate and his/her poll managers have to keep it in mind before they make their pitch.
Rallies, alliances and high pitch campaigns are part and parcel of every election campaign. But a more responsive approach is called for to help women voters of West Bengal make up their minds; women centric social welfare schemes apart, giving nomination to the highest number of women candidates is a pointer to TMC’s gender sensibilities.
Women voters or to be more specific most of them are “silent king makers”. Except for a handful they do not speak from the most powerful platform of the political arena.
Theirs is perhaps not the most audible voice. But fact remains most of the women voters identify with Trinamool supremo Mamata Banerjee.
That is why their support is low-key and crucial even in the constituencies which do not have women candidates. Come April 23 and April 29, the silent assertion of the women voters of West Bengal will go a long way in scripting the future of their state. (IPA Service)
