Women: A vote bank for Delhi's poll players

The Aam Aadmi Party government has already made known its intent of currying favour with women voters by rolling out schemes aimed at their safety.

Delhi CM and AAP chief Arvind Kejriwal (File | PTI)

NEW DELHI: With the Assembly polls drawing near, all parties shifting positions in Delhi’s political chessboard come elections, seems to have turned to women, arguably a pliable and a significant vote bank in the national capital, for a shot at power.

The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government has already made known its intent of currying favour with women voters by rolling out schemes aimed at their safety.

Since the turn of the year, the Kejriwal government announced a bevvy of schemes — installation of CCTV cameras in public places, free Metro and bus rides, free electricity up to 200 units and free water — aimed at both working women and homemakers who comprise about 40 per cent of the city’s voters.

While it is safe to say that women are the focus of this dispensation, it’s hard to reason why.

There are no available data to suggest that women-led the wave in Kejriwal’s favour in the 2015 Assembly elections.

“I don’t see any problem if people vote for us purely on the basis of our work. As for our plan to make bus and Metro rides free for women, it has nothing to do with the Assembly polls.

This is precisely how our government has been working for the people over the last four years,” Rakhi Birla, Deputy Speaker, Delhi Assembly and AAP MLA said.

However, the timing of the schemes has raised a few eyebrows in political circles. “This is nothing but a ploy by the CM to divert people’s attention from his government’s failures,” former AAP MLA Devender Sherawat said.

“In 2015, there was a huge surge in AAP’s favour from every section of voters.

However, we can’t say if there was a disproportionate pattern in terms of how men and women voted.

While these schemes might have some impact on women voters, one doubts if they’ll be enough to sway the entire vote bank towards AAP,” Sanjay Kumar, a professor at Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, said.

Recently, the Centre and the Delhi government approved a plan to give ownership rights to lakhs of people residing in unauthorised colonies.

Delhi BJP chief Manoj Tiwari demanded that the registrations be done in the name of a woman member of each family.