With handouts, piped water and cooking gas, India's Modi woos women voters

Women raise hands at an event where the senior Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Shivraj Singh Chouhan was visiting, in the village Ladkui near Bhopal, India, February 8, 2024. REUTERS/Anushree Fadnavis

BHOPAL, India (Reuters) - Living in a slum in central India with her widowed mother and two young daughters, Nayantara Gupta says she owes her relative prosperity in recent years to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

Gupta, a 28-year-old single mother, said she voted for the BJP in the last two general elections and plans to do the same in the next vote due by May, citing the party's focus on women's welfare, including cash handouts and domestic benefits such as piped water, 24/7 electricity and a cooking gas connection in her cramped home.