The Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray) on Wednesday, 3 June launched a sharp attack on Maharashtra's ruling Mahayuti, alleging that the coalition came to power by ‘buying’ the votes of nearly one crore women through the Mukhyamantri Majhi Ladki Bahin Yojana, and branding the scheme a ‘global scam’. The party has demanded an inquiry by a sitting High Court judge after roughly 80 lakh women were declared ineligible following an e-KYC verification drive.

What the Saamana editorial alleged

In an editorial published in the party mouthpiece ‘Saamana’, the Uddhav Thackeray-led faction alleged that the Devendra Fadnavis–Eknath Shinde–Ajit Pawar trio won the Maharashtra Assembly elections through ‘manipulation’. The piece claimed the scheme was rolled out mid-campaign, with a monthly allowance of ₹1,500 announced for 2.38 crore women, sparking ‘intense competition’ among the three leaders to host women's rallies.

The e-KYC fallout

The editorial said that following the e-KYC process, around 80 lakh women were ruled ineligible, which it described as proof that public funds were ‘indiscriminately diverted’ into the accounts of ineligible beneficiaries to swing votes. By December 2024, more than ₹17,000 crore had reportedly been disbursed under the scheme.

‘In this whole corrupt game, our Election Commission played the role of the deaf, mute, and blind,’ the editorial stated, alleging that the trio's vote tally ‘swelled by roughly one crore’ on the back of the cash transfers.

The Thackeray camp's demands

The party argued that any recovery of misused funds must not come from the ineligible women beneficiaries, but from those who authorised the disbursals. It called for seizure of the ‘movable and immovable properties’ of the Chief Minister and the two Deputy Chief Ministers, and for anti-corruption cases against the officials who cleared payments without verification — ‘especially the then-Secretary of the concerned department’.

The editorial went further, demanding that the Election Commission ‘declare the voting by such women invalid and announce fresh elections in Maharashtra’.

Why it matters

The Ladki Bahin Yojana is widely credited as a decisive factor in the Mahayuti's landslide return to power in the November 2024 Assembly polls. Notably, this is among the first organised opposition pushbacks targeting the scheme's post-poll audit trail, and it links the eligibility purge directly to the integrity of the mandate — a politically combustible framing.

What's next

The Thackeray camp has signalled it will press the demand for a sitting High Court judge-led probe and a CAG audit. The Mahayuti government is yet to formally respond to the latest allegations, even as the e-KYC-driven beneficiary trimming continues across districts.