Former Odisha chief minister Naveen Patnaik’s experiment to enhance women’s participation in electoral politics in the state may have been glossed over due to the Biju Janata Dal’s (BJD) defeat in the 2024 Lok Sabha and assembly elections. Yet, this experiment remains unprecedented in India — not only did the BJD ensure that 33% of its candidates were women — the party innovatively mobilised women Self-Help Groups (SHGs) to campaign for the party.
Patnaik’s initiative holds promise that Odisha could, in the future, elect women who have risen from grassroots movements to the Lok Sabha and assembly. These women would not be dynasts, wealthy elites, or professionals but rather representatives of the common people.
A brief overview of Odisha’s women SHGs is essential to understand this initiative. In 2001, under Patnaik’s leadership, Odisha launched Mission Shakti, a programme aimed at empowering women through the formation of SHGs. By 2021, this mission had organised nearly 70 lakh women into six lakh SHGs across all 314 blocks of the state.
Mission Shakti focused on fostering financial inclusion and economic empowerment, providing SHG members with savings accounts and interest-free loans, facilitating market linkages for their products, and offering skills training for various income-generating activities.
Gender equality in representative politics: Theory to limited praxis
The economic empowerment of women through SHGs serves as a crucial foundation for their political mobilisation. Nancy Fraser’s theory of gender justice emphasises on the importance of redistribution, recognition, and representation in achieving gender equality. Mission Shakti ensured that women not only gained economic benefits but also received recognition for their contributions and were encouraged to participate in the political process. Hanna Pitkin’s concept of representation distinguishes between descriptive representation (the presence of women in political bodies) and substantive representation (advocating for women’s interests).
The BJD’s strategy with SHGs ostensibly aligned with substantive representation, empowering women to engage politically and advocate for their interests. However, there were limitations. First, the Mission Shakti SHG office bearers were not permitted to contest in elections. Second, those who were not in leadership positions were often too junior to contest in MLA or MP elections. Instead, a few of them contested in local body elections. As a result, while the party created a system to enhance women’s political participation, the 33% of seats allocated to women in the assembly and Lok Sabha elections were not enjoyed by SHG members.
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Despite these limitations, by creating a structured network of SHG leaders at various levels, the BJD fostered political awareness and leadership skills among women, enabling them to become active participants in the political landscape. Some respondents expressed their intent to explore pathways to contest in elections.
A case study: Sambalpur parliamentary constituency
A case study of the Sambalpur parliamentary constituency (PC) illustrates the workings of BJD’s strategy of prioritising allegiance. With approximately 3.5 lakh SHG women voters, the BJD mobilised these beneficiaries to ensure their political allegiance.
A hierarchical network was established, starting with block level leaders down to booth leaders and workers. This network of around 8,000 SHG women conducted door-to-door campaigns, distributing leaflets, and mobilising support for the BJD. The mobilisation strategy in Sambalpur PC signified that the BJD sought to instill a sense of loyalty and trust among SHG women. This loyalty was crucial in mobilising support during elections.
Electoral mobilisation: A unique challenge
Sambalpur PC witnessed a high voter turnout of 79.5% in Odisha’s phase four polling, with some assembly constituencies (ACs) achieving over 80% turnout. While it is logical to attribute this high turnout to the SHGs, it raises questions about why the BJD was still defeated. We acknowledge that this was a contest between heavyweights (Dharmendra Pradhan from the BJP and Pranab Prakash Das from the BJD). Additionally, the BJP successfully tapped into regional identity and sentiments across the state during the elections. Notwithstanding the above, we proffer two reasons that contributed to the BJD’s defeat.
Firstly, the involvement of SHGs in political work raised concerns among the traditional party cadres, who felt sidelined. Unlike the SHG workers, the investment of party cadres in the party is deeper, stemming from either a commitment to an ideological offering or the charisma of a leader. The BJD’s sway among workers and people has been largely due to charismatic leaders like Patnaik. Such leaders thrive on accessibility to their cadres, but charisma is not easily transferable. The sidelining of traditional party cadres, who are crucial for voter mobilisation between elections and on polling days, along with the lack of direct access to leadership, hampered the BJD’s electoral prospects.
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Secondly, while SHG women were capable of mobilising voters, they lacked the ideological foundation that binds voters and supporters to the party. Welfare and economic empowerment without an ideological offering rendered the SHGs pliable, especially by a party like the BJP, which combines an ideological narrative with a bigger quantum of resources. As a result, although the SHGs were effective in mobilising voters, this did not translate into electoral victories for the BJD.
The future pathway(s) of SHG-based mobilisation
On a broader note, the sustainability of the SHG model as a political mobilisation strategy is questionable, given the populist leadership style that has characterised Odisha’s political landscape for decades. The success of SHGs in mobilising women voters has been closely tied to Naveen Patnaik’s leadership. With his party’s defeat, the future of this model will depend on whether new party leadership within the BJD or from other parties like the BJP can integrate SHGs into their organisational structures without alienating traditional party cadres.
Nevertheless, by integrating economic empowerment with political mobilization, SHGs have significantly increased political awareness and engagement among women. This approach offers valuable insights into achieving gender justice and representation, providing a model for other regions seeking to enhance women’s political participation. If the concerns mentioned above are addressed, the Odisha experience presents itself as a model that can be replicated in other regions to enhance women’s political representation and participation.
Vignesh Karthik KR is a postdoctoral research fellow of Indian and Indonesian politics at the Royal Netherlands Institute of Southeast Asian and Caribbean Studies, Leiden, and a research affiliate, at the King’s India Institute, King’s College London. Anushree Rai is a political and public policy consultant based in the National Capital Region.
