A large number of women stood in queues outside the Bengaluru General Post Office to open an Indian Post Payment Bank (IPPB) account, which they believed would ensure that they get Rs 8,500 per month as the INDI Alliance comes to power in the Lok Sabha Election 2024.Anticipating a victory for the INDIA bloc, women in Karnataka’s Bengaluru have made a big queue to the otherwise quiet General Post Office in a rush on May 27th to open IPPB accounts and get a monthly stipend of Rs 8,500 into their accounts, if the Congress alliance comes to power at the Centre. A large number of women, mostly belonging to the minority community, have been queuing up outside the post office to get the benefits of the scheme promised by the Congress if the INDIA bloc comes to power.
The news had been circulating on WhatsApp groups, suggesting that political parties were transferring 8,500 Rs in post-office accounts. The rumour suggested that Monday was the last day to avail this benefit, due to which hundreds of women rushed to the GPO. These women believe that money will start coming from the day the account is opened. The flood of women opening accounts got so bad that the GPO had to deploy additional staff to facilitate the account opening process and additionally, police had to be called to help regulate the crowds that as per reports started assembling at 3 am.Chief Postmaster of GPO Bengaluru H M Manjesh said people have been coming to the office to open IPPB accounts, believing that the Department of Post would credit Rs 2,000 or Rs 8,500 into their accounts.
“Somebody has spread this rumour. The department will not pay any amount to them and has already informed the customers about this. However, this account can be used for any type of online transaction or even Direct Benefit (Transfer) scheme,” Manjesh clarified. To deal with the massive rush, the post office even opened counters outside the GPO building, he said. “Earlier we used to open 50 to 60 accounts in a counter. Now we have made separate arrangements. We have brought our postmen for this purpose and regularly we are opening around 500 to 600 accounts, sometimes even 1,000 accounts in a day,” Manjesh said. There are strong speculations that the rumors were allegedly spread by some Congress MLAs, following which females are rushing to the post office. The MLAs said that the women will start getting money after June 4 “when the INDIA bloc will come to power”. It is to be noted that the Congress has promised to launch the Mahalakshmi scheme under which Rs 8,500 will be directly credited into the account of women heads of families belonging to Below Poverty Line (BPL) category. It is similar to the Gruha Lakshmi guarantee scheme started by the Karnataka government in which Rs 2,000 is paid to women heads of BPL families.