Kolkata, Apr 10 (PTI) In a state where women have stood like a rock behind Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and the TMC for nearly 15 years, the BJP has decided that its road to power in Bengal now runs through Bengal’s women.
Unveiling a manifesto heavy on cash doles, welfare promises and safety-related measures targeted exclusively at women, the saffron party on Friday mounted its sharpest assault yet on the TMC’s most durable electoral bastion, seeking to turn the 2026 assembly polls into a direct contest over who can better protect, empower and provide for Bengal’s women.
At the heart of that strategy was Union Home Minister Amit Shah’s promise that every woman in Bengal would receive Rs 3,000 a month if the BJP came to power.
“We will transfer Rs 3,000 to the account of every mother in Bengal,” Shah said in Kolkata, also promising free travel for women in all state-run buses and 33 per cent reservation for women in all government jobs, including the police.
The message was aimed squarely at the constituency that has repeatedly rescued the TMC whenever anti-incumbency, corruption allegations or rural discontent threatened to hurt it.
Women constitute nearly half of Bengal’s electorate and, in recent elections, have turned out in greater numbers than men. Political observers have long argued that the rise in women’s turnout and the popularity of welfare schemes such as Lakshmir Bhandar have become one of Mamata Banerjee’s strongest electoral shields.
Only last month, the TMC raised Lakshmir Bhandar assistance by Rs 500 in its own manifesto, taking the monthly payout to Rs 1,500 for women from the general category and Rs 1,700 for SC and ST women.
The BJP’s counter-offer of Rs 3,000 — almost double the revised amount for most beneficiaries — is being seen as an attempt to turn the election into a contest over who can better provide security, dignity and economic support.
But the BJP is not relying on welfare alone. The party believes that beneath the loyalty of Bengal’s women voters there is also a layer of anger and anxiety, especially after a series of incidents that dominated public discourse over the past two years.
The unrest in Sandeshkhali in 2024, where several women accused local TMC strongmen of intimidation and sexual abuse, followed by the rape and murder of a doctor at RG Kar Medical College and Hospital, an incident that triggered outrage across the state, drew thousands of women onto the streets and reopened a wider debate over whether women in Bengal still feel safe.
The BJP has sought to stitch those two episodes into a larger political narrative — that while the TMC speaks of women’s empowerment, it has failed to ensure women’s safety.
That explains why Shah’s manifesto speech repeatedly returned to the themes of “respect”, “protection” and “fear-free living”.
For women’s safety, the BJP promised a women-only “Durga Surokha Squad” for patrolling. It also announced a separate self-defence training unit, at least one women’s police station in every block and a women’s help desk in every police station.
The party promised two all-women battalions in the State Reserve Police Force, named after Matangini Hazra and Rani Rashmoni, besides 33 per cent reservation for women in all government jobs.
It also offered a wide welfare package: Rs 21,000 and six nutrition kits for pregnant women from poor families, Rs 50,000 for girls taking admission in graduation courses, free HPV vaccination for girls and women below 40 and free breast cancer screening for economically weaker women above 40.
There were also promises of working women’s hostels in every district, higher honorarium for anganwadi, ASHA and animal welfare workers, measures to prevent child marriage and the creation of 75 lakh “Lakhpati Didis”.
The focus on women has come at a time when the SIR of electoral rolls has added a fresh political twist to the battle.
Before the revision, Bengal had 959 women voters for every 1,000 men. After the revision, the figure dropped to 950.
Though the decline appears marginal, analysts say even a small reduction in the number of women electors could matter in tightly contested seats, particularly when women have been the TMC’s most dependable constituency.
The BJP has expanded among urban voters, large parts of north Bengal, but it has repeatedly struggled to match the TMC’s advantage among women, especially in rural Bengal.
That is why the BJP’s 2026 campaign appears designed not merely to attack the TMC, but to enter the emotional and political space Mamata Banerjee has occupied for over a decade.
If Lakshmir Bhandar was the foundation of the TMC’s hold over Bengal’s women, the BJP is now trying to build a rival edifice- one resting equally on money, jobs and the promise of safety.
The battle for Bengal’s women, once seen as firmly settled, may now emerge as the defining undercurrent of an election in which the BJP is trying to prise open the TMC’s strongest bastion and redraw Bengal’s political map. PTI PNT NN NN
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