Akhilesh’s Rs 40,000 promise: Samajwadi Party, BJP battle for women’s votes in UP

At 45.46 per cent, women account for nearly half of the electorate in the state. (File Photo) 5 min readAug 14, 2026 11:05 AM IST First published on: Aug 13, 2026 at 10:14 PM IST With the 2027 Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections still months away, the battle for women’s votes is heating up. Amid reports that the BJP government is considering a cash benefit scheme for women from families that fall below the poverty line, Samajwadi Party (SP) chief Akhilesh Yadav has sought to raise the stakes, announcing an annual benefit of Rs 40,000 for women if the SP returns to power. The competing moves point to an emerging political calculation in Uttar Pradesh: women, who constitute nearly half of the state’s electorate, are increasingly being treated not merely as beneficiaries of welfare schemes but as a distinct electoral constituency.