As per West Bengal Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari, about 30 lakh women who were supposed to benefit from the Lakshmi Bhandar scheme were reportedly found ineligible for the same. The Lakshmi Bhandar is a welfare scheme launched by the erstwhile Trinamool Congress government to offer financial aid in the form of cash assistance to women across the state.
Addressing a press conference on Wednesday, the BJP cm suvendu Adhikari stated that several beneficiaries were found to be ineligible for the scheme. He pointed out that many of these women had actually been excluded from the voter list in the wake of the special intensive revision process, or even worse, they did not possess Indian citizenship as per the CAA. Suvendu Adhikari further pointed out that these reasons raised serious doubts regarding the eligibility of such beneficiaries in a welfare scheme like the Lakshmi Bhandar. Such statements are expected to bring a political angle to an already controversial discussion about citizenship status and voter list revision processes.
Cm suvendu Adhikari said
These comments came in the wake of comments made by the minister of Women and Child Development for the state of West Bengal, Agnimitra Paul, on May 12, saying that all women who had their names deleted from electoral rolls under the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) process will no longer qualify for benefits under the newly introduced Annapurna Bhandar program. This newly launched scheme is said to take over the position held by the current Lakshmi Bhandar program, starting June 1. Women qualifying under this new scheme will reportedly get a sum of Rs 3,000 each month, which is twice what the current beneficiaries of Lakshmi Bhandar scheme receive at the moment. At present, the monthly allocation received by all beneficiaries of the Lakshmi Bhandar scheme is Rs 1,500 each. Speaking about Wednesday, suvendu Adhikari said that the foremost objective of the new government is to develop a clean and proper list of beneficiaries before implementing the scheme. According to CM suvendu Adhikari, the government can only know the real beneficiaries when the applications are freshly filed and scrutinized.
According to Suvendu Adhikari, new application forms will also be issued in relation to the Annapurna Bhandar scheme, and the verification will be carried out by the Women and Child Development Department. As stated in The Indian Express, this will involve the evaluation of the applications to ascertain who among the applicants qualifies for inclusion in the beneficiary list. Suvendu Adhikari made it clear that those who already receive monetary assistance through the Lakshmi Bhandar scheme will not have any breaks or interruptions in their aid until the entire process of verification comes to its conclusion. As per his statement, the government has no intentions of suspending the benefits at this point of time and thus, the concerned people will not suffer due to the ongoing verification.
While explaining about the complexity of switching from the existing scheme to the proposed new one, Suvendu Adhikari explained that there are going to be several government departments involved in the preparation of the list of the beneficiaries. He was of the opinion that it will be a very difficult exercise on the administrative side and proper verification would be required before preparing the database. These events took place against the backdrop of the upcoming West Bengal Assembly elections, in which an intensive revision of the voter rolls was done before the elections.
By April 6, about 91 lakh voters had been struck off from the rolls. Such a number comprised about 11.9 percent of the entire electorate in existence prior to the revision process. The massive strike off of names was a matter of concern that prompted numerous objections, legal challenges, and administrative complaints. Prior to the actual election process, about 34 lakh cases were pending before the tribunals concerned. Out of such pending cases, seven lakh cases pertained to the inclusion of particular names within the list of voters while about 27 lakh cases emanated from the excluded voters who were seeking to be restored back into the roll of voters.
In order to address the issues related to electoral rolls, the tribunals had been formed. After the hearing of various cases, these tribunals were reported to have passed decisions concerning the reinstatement of 1,607 names in the roll of voters.