Ahead of Telangana gram panchayat polls, Congress relaunched Indiramma sarees to woo women voters

Another major election is round the corner and the Congress party has already begun revealing what many call its true colours. After abruptly discontinuing the hugely popular Bathukamma saree scheme introduced by the previous BRS government for women, the Congress government has now relaunched the same programme under a different name, clearly with the forthcoming gram panchayat elections in mind.

The motive is not hard to understand. Women voters form a decisive majority in Telangana’s 12,733 gram panchayats, with 85,36,770 women out of a total rural electorate of 1,67,03,168. Telangana is also among those States where the Telangana Panchayat Raj Act provides a minimum 50 per cent reservation for women in gram panchayat seats. Combined with SC, ST and BC rotation, this makes women the most crucial electoral force during local body elections.

The Indiramma sarees distribution programme, the ‘revamped’ version of the BRS’ Bathukamma saree scheme, has been launched conveniently at a time when the State Election



Commission is preparing to conduct panchayat elections in the second week of December. In the first phase, 65 lakh sarees are being distributed in rural areas by December 9, while 35 lakh sarees are planned between March 1 and 8 in urban areas. The timing and phased target speak for themselves, leaving little doubt about the Congress agenda to woo women voters ahead of the polls.

Whether these sarees will be enough to sway rural Telangana’s women is another question, especially if women have not forgotten the long list of promises made to them by the Congress before coming to power.

Launching the Indiramma saree scheme, Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy had claimed that women self-help groups would run fuel stations and operate 1,000 TGSRTC buses on lease, and that Indiramma houses would be given in women’s names. He also repeated his sweeping election promise to turn one crore women into millionaires. What he avoided mentioning was the long catalogue of promises made during the 2023 Assembly election campaign that still lie untouched.