BJP’s Bengal manifesto - Focus on women vote.
The keypoint of the manifesto is -
1. once any girl is in Class 8, the BJP has promised Rs 22,000, to be offered in four installments at different points during her schooling.
2. The schemes announced for girl children of families from the Scheduled Castes (SCs), Scheduled Tribes (STs), and Other Backward Classes (OBCs), and other weaker sections, total up to cash assistance of Rs 3.72 lakh per beneficiary.
3. Targeting another Mamata scheme, ‘Rupashree’, which promises Rs 25,000 to a girl’s family when she turns 18, the BJP has announced a Rs 2 lakh grant for unmarried girls who have completed their higher secondary education (Class 12).
4. Another scheme — ‘Gharer Lokkhi Yojana’ — promises a fixed deposit of Rs 1 lakh to adult women from the SC, ST, OBC, and other economically weaker sections at the time of their marriage. A proposed ‘Balika Alo Yojana’ promises the issuance of a Rs 50,000 bond to each family from the SC, ST, OBC, and other weaker sections on the birth of a girl child.
5. The BJP has promised annual cash aid of Rs 10,000 for farmers — Rs 6,000 under the central government’s PM Kisan scheme and Rs 4,000 from the state government. The Trinamool Congress manifesto has also increased the state government’s cash aid for farmers to Rs 10,000 per year, from Rs 6,000.
6. The party has promised three AIIMS hospitals, a Rs 22,000 crore fund for the development of capital Kolkata, Rs 11,000 crore for a Sonar Bangla project (aimed at a push for culture, among other things), and to name the new Kolkata-Siliguri expressway after Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose.
7. Eying the coastal Purba Medinipur district, known as Mamata Banerjee’s den, the BJP has offered annual financial assistance of Rs 6,000 for fishermen.