Free bus rides a godsend, but women divided on scheme’s poll dividend for AAP
Armed with an empty vegetable basket, 30-year-old Hamita Khatun boards the bus at the Peeragarhi bus stand every morning. A vegetable vendor in Dwarka, Ms. Khatun is thankful for the “pink tickets” that guarantee her free bus rides to and from Keshopur Mandi, where she purchases several quintals of vegetables daily. Once she has loaded her daily ware onto a truck for further transport, she prefers to travel home on the bus while seated comfortably in a pink seat reserved for women.
Ms. Khatun is among the 11 lakh women who use the pink tickets every day. The scheme, a major poll promise of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government, was launched months prior to the 2020 Assembly election, and oers free rides to women in over 4,000 Staterun buses in the Capital.
In March, days before his arrest by the Enforcement Directorate in an alleged money laundering case, Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal appealed to women voters for their support in the upcoming Lok Sabha election. While promising them ₹1,000 under the Mukhyamantri Mahila Samman Yojana, a scheme applicable to women over 18, Mr. Kejriwal asked them to urge their family members to support AAP.
The party’s women’s wing is also holding meetings with slum dwellers across the Capital, where feedback is being taken on initiatives like the pink tickets, Mahila Mohalla Clinics, and the Mukhyamantri Mahila Samman Yojana.
On the fence
Of Delhi’s 1.47 crore voters, 67 lakh are women, according to data published by the Election Commission of India in January this year. While the AAP government’s eorts to woo almost half the voter base have indeed won considerable support, consensus varies on whether it is enough to secure the party enough votes.
“The pink tickets do help me save ₹70 every day,” Ms. Khatun admits. “But the cost of living is so high that the money saved ends up being spent on other things.”
But for others like 37year-old Mukesharani, AAP’s women-oriented schemes are a godsend. “I save ₹100 every day on my commute from Tikri to Keshopur Depot,” says the Delhi Jal Board employee, who lost her husband to an accident two years ago.
“The Delhi government’s facilities, from free electricity to free bus rides, have helped me signicantly ever since I became a single mother,” she says, adding that if no AAP candidate is contesting from her constituency, she “might not vote at all”.
Problematic bus routes
Several women, however, say the free bus tickets are not worth the problems that come with travelling on the bus.
Poonam Chandrawanshi, who works as a security guard at the Indira Gandhi International Airport, says she takes the bus only when she has time to spare. “For those of us who are working, the free tickets are important. But most of the time, buses don’t stop for women, especially at night,” the 26-year-old says, adding that from Mundka, where she begins her commute, she has to switch buses ve times en route, resulting in her reaching home three hours after her shift ends.
Jyoti, 23, who will cast her vote for the rst time this year, says that despite the bus tickets reducing her expenditure as a young employee at the Life Insurance Corporation, her family is still on the fence regarding whether they will support AAP in the general election, especially after the arrest of Mr. Kejriwal.