BENGALURU: With a year left for the state Assembly election, the BJP is trying to woo women from minority communities by extending benefits of ‘Nai Roshini’ scheme offered by the Union Minority Affairs department. They aim to reach out to at least 50,000 women.
One of the pet schemes of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Nai Roshini was launched three years back. But there were very few beneficiaries due to poor awareness. The scheme aimed to empower and instil confidence among women belonging to minority communities by providing knowledge, tools and techniques to interact with government systems, banks and other institutions across all levels.
Rashmi D’Souza, general secretary, BJP Minority Morcha, said, “We have formed teams with our party members, most of them women.
These teams visit mandals, ensuring benefits of the scheme reach minority women. It could be health, education, availing loans under the scheme. Due to interference of brokers, the benefits were not reaching many,” she said.
She said BJP is targeting 50,000 women and has so far reached over 5,000, including 1,300 from Bengaluru Urban, 850 from Shivamogga and 300 from Kolar.
A senior BJP leader said the party is focusing on Mission 150 in the upcoming election. “As such there is tension because of the conflict among two leaders representing prominent castes in Karnataka. Our leaders do not want to take a chance. For us minority votes matter and are important. So we have started the campaign early,” he said.
Senior BJP leader B N Vijaykumar said there has been a misconception that the party is not pro-minority. “Nai Roshini is a scheme which needs to reach more beneficiaries,” he said.