Congress to distribute five lakh sanitary pad packets ahead of Bihar Assembly elections

Ahead of the State Assembly elections in Bihar, the Congress is set to distribute five lakh sanitary pad packets to women, featuring party leader Rahul Gandhi’s photograph, a move that has drawn strong criticism from the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which termed it “anti-women” and an “insult” to the women of the State.

“We’ll launch a campaign through the Mahila [women’s] Congress to distribute sanitary napkins with an aim to reach five lakh women. Mahila Congress workers will create awareness around the subject among the women,” State Congress president Rajesh Kumar told media persons on Friday while holding a sanitary napkin packet at the party headquarters, Sadaqat Ashram.

The pink-coloured sanitary napkin packet bore a photograph of Rahul Gandhi and the text: “Maai-Bahin Yojna…2,500 mahina (month)” in bold letters, along with “Akhil Bhartiya Mahila Congress”.

The announcement was made in the presence of the president of the party’s women’s cell, Alka Lamba, and Bihar Pradesh Congress Committee (BPCC) president Rajesh Kumar.

The Congress is part of the mahagathbandhan comprising the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) and other Opposition parties. Party leader Rahul Gandhi has, of late, been making frequent visits to Bihar in the run-up to the Assembly elections scheduled for October–November this year.

However, shortly after the announcement, the BJP strongly opposed the move. “An insult of women of Bihar with Rahul Gandhi’s picture on sanitary pad! Congress is an anti-women party! Women of Bihar will teach Congress-RJD a lesson,” BJP spokesperson Pradeep Bhandari posted on social media platform X, along with a television news clip on the Congress’s move. State BJP leaders echoed the sentiment, calling the move an “insult” to women. =

In the 2020 Assembly elections, the Congress had contested 70 seats under the mahagathbandhan and secured victory in 19 constituencies. Bihar has a 243-member Assembly. Opposition sources within the mahagathbandhan told The Hindu that seat-sharing arrangements for the 2025 elections have been finalised, and “a formal announcement will soon be made by the top leadership of the parties”. The alliance is expected to mount a stiff challenge to the ruling JD(U)-BJP-led NDA in the State.

The BPCC chief also criticised the ongoing “Special Intensive Revision” of the electoral rolls in election-bound Bihar by the Election Commission (EC), questioning its timing. “If it had to be done, why was it not done before the Lok Sabha elections held last year in 2024? This move of EC will, in fact, bereft several voters of Bihar from exercising their franchise in the upcoming Assembly poll,” he alleged.

Meanwhile, the EC’s exercise has caused concern among voters, with several alleging that they “do not have the papers of 11 required documents to remain in the voters’ list of the State”. Family members of such claimants expressed apprehension that, as their “young family members have migrated to other places in search of livelihood”, they would not be able to furnish the necessary documents within such a short period and would eventually “lose their voting right”.