Bengaluru: The final electoral roll could help Congress govt fine-tune its guarantee schemes ahead of the 2028 assembly elections even as concerns over large-scale voter deletions make it cautious about using the list for other welfare programmes.With women accounting for 2.29 crore voters, their electoral significance is underscored by two Congress guarantees, Gruha Lakshmi and Shakti, which exclusively target women. In the immediate term, govt plans to use the revised roll to identify ineligible beneficiaries under Gruha Lakshmi, which provides financial assistance to women heads of households.The state-level guarantee schemes committee says Rs 117.45 crore has been deposited in accounts of 1.60 lakh deceased beneficiaries since the scheme’s launch in 2023. “Now, with this final electoral roll, we will use it to identify eligible beneficiaries and weed out the dead and ineligible,” said Dinesh Gooligowda, committee vice-chairman.He alleged that some beneficiaries were drawing scheme benefits while retaining their votes in Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra. “The intent of the Congress govt is to ensure that Kannadiga women get the benefits. With the SIR final roll, the nodal department for the scheme will launch a rationalisation exercise,” said Gooligowda, a Congress MLC.The committee says 1,24,48,998 women have received Rs 66,000 each under Gruha Lakshmi over the past three years. Officials expect the SIR data to help contain expenditure, as voter-list data has already been used to rationalise Gruha Jyothi, the free electricity scheme. Congress sees the payouts as central to its appeal among women voters ahead of the next assembly polls.“We are confident women voters will consider Congress because the govt continued payouts even during the severe drought, helping them meet daily expenses. It has come as a ‘Sanjeevani’ for women in the state,” Gooligowda said.However, govt is wary of using the SIR roll as the primary database for other social security schemes, including pensions and scholarships, because of the scale of voter deletions.“With 65 lakh voters shown as having shifted out of their constituencies, they need to have enrolled in other parts of the state,” said a CMO official. “Even if many have retained their votes elsewhere in the country, there cannot be such a drastic difference in the electorate.”Govt is especially concerned about Bengaluru, where voter numbers have fallen sharply. It plans to assess how many eligible voters return to the roll through Form 6 applications.
