All parties try to attract women Self Help Groups

Hyderabad: Women self-help groups  with a strong network across the state and a membership of over 1.15 crore have emerged as a strong vote bank, who can make or mar the electoral prospects of any political party.

All the parties in the state are thus vying with each other to garner the support of women SHGs in the ensuing elections. And they are doing so by promising loan waiver schemes if they come to power.

These SHGs owe banks nearly Rs 14,000 crore, which the YSRC, Congress, TD and TRS are promising to waive off if elected to power. All these parties have included this in their election manifestos.

The current membership of SHGs stands at 1,15,76,628 and they owe banks Rs 13,862.16 crore. This amounts to each member owing Rs 11,974. The parties hope that if they are able to secure the support of women SHG members numbering over 1.15 crore, they could get over 2.30 crore votes, amounting to 40 per cent of the total 6 crore voters in the state, assuming that there will be at least two votes in each SHG family.

Parties believe that in the present multi-cornered contests, where the margin between winners and losers are expected to be less than 2,000 in majority of the Assembly seats, SHGs will play a decisive role.

TD chief Chandrababu Naidu, during his tenure as CM between 1995 and 2004, had encouraged women SHGs (they were known as Dwacra groups then) by offering loans for lower interest rates and training them in various skills to make them self-employed. These groups played a crucial role in Mr Naidu retaining power in the 1999 elections.

Later, Congress CM candidate YSR had come up with the “pavala vaddi scheme” (25 paisa interest ) during 2004 elections to woo SHGs. Needless to say, YSR’s scheme received overwhelming response, as the interest rate was lower compared to Naidu’s scheme and played a crucial role in Congress sweeping the elections in 2004.

The scheme also helped YSR retain power in 2009. After the untimely death of YSR in September 2009, K. Rosaiah, who became CM, continued the scheme. However, Kiran Kumar Reddy, who became CM in December 2010, modified the scheme and offered interest free loans to SHGs and established himself as a strong leader among SHGs. To counter this, Mr Naidu has promised to waive off the entire loan amount of SHGs, if the party is elected to power.

Other parties, which had initially dismissed the claims of Mr Naidu saying that it was “practically impossible”, later followed suit and started making similar promises. Now, almost all the parties have included loan waiver schemes in their manifestos to please women SHGs.