After ‘Ladki Bahin’ success in Maharashtra, BJP eyeing similar scheme for women in Delhi to counter AAP’s ‘Mahila Samman yojana’

Sources said the suggestion was part of the proceedings of its organisational and election management committees held over the last week and conveyed to its national leadership. The BJP’s manifesto, sources added, was likely to be announced either by late December or early January.

“The implementation of a scheme similar to the Ladli Behna and Ladki Bahin schemes is one of the significant suggestions that has been received by the party’s state unit with regard to its manifesto for the Delhi Assembly elections,” a senior BJP leader said.

“Several other suggestions, which will be followed by announcements, have been conveyed to the national leadership for its go-ahead; the final decision will come in a few days,” the leader added.

The Delhi government had first announced its Mahila Samman Rashi scheme in its 2024-25 budget in March, allocating Rs 2,000 crore out of its Rs 76,000 crore budget for it. Leaders at the time had said that the first payment under the scheme would be made in September or October. The arrest of then Delhi CM, Arvind Kejriwal, however, resulted in the scheme getting stalled. The draft of the scheme has been readied but is yet to be cleared by the Council of Ministers.

While the Ladki Bahin scheme is said to have contributed significantly to the BJP-NCP-Shiv Sena Mahayuti bloc’s Assembly win in Maharashtra, the JMM-led INDIA bloc government’s second consecutive term in office it attributed mainly to its implementation of the Maiya Samman Yojana in Jharkhand.

As it awaits a nod in this regard from its national headquarters, the Delhi BJP has begun taking on the AAP over what the opposition party alleges is a “misinformation campaign” around it seeking to discontinue the current subsidies in place across government departments.

South Delhi BJP MP and convener of the party’s ‘Sankalp Patra’ or manifesto committee, Ramvir Singh Bidhuri, on Monday, announced that a BJP government, if formed in Delhi, would continue the AAP Delhi government’s subsidies in the power, water and public transportation sectors.

Bidhuri had said at the suggestion of Delhi BJP president Virendra Sachdeva, a potential BJP government in Delhi would continue “all social schemes, electricity-water subsidies, and transport discounts in Delhi” would be improved qualitatively and be extended “to new sections of the public”.

“While the party has already announced its commitment to implementing the Ayushman Bharat scheme, which the AAP government stalled for years, as one of the first decisions of a BJP government if it is formed, the BJP’s women-centric scheme may likely have a higher amount than the AAP’s Rs 1,000,” another leader said.

“It is now in the national leadership’s domain to assess the amount of the monthly gratis payment and whether or not to go ahead with announcing the implementation of such a scheme at all,” this leader added.