Karnataka state goddess Chamundeshwari gets Rs 1.18 lakh as Congress 'Gruha Lakshmi'

The state goddess of Karnataka has become a beneficiary of the Congress government's Gruha Lakshmi scheme, under which Rs 2,000 is given to the female head of a family each month.

Chamundeshwari, who is revered as nada devi—unusually—received the Gruha Lakshmi amount in advance for the next five years.

The Congress minister in charge of women and child development, Lakshmi Hebbalkar, gave Rs 1.18 lakh for 59 months from her personal account on 27 November. The government had released the first instalment of Rs 2,000 in the second week of November, following directions from deputy chief minister D.K. Shivakumar.

The decision to grant the amount under the Gruha Lakshmi scheme was the initiative of Congress MLC Dinesh Gooligowda, who requested  Shivakumar to include the goddess. The deputy chief minister accordingly wrote to Hebbalkar to release the Rs 2,000 every month either from her department's budget or personal account. Hebbalkar opted to give the entire amount in advance on her own.

Speaking to the National Herald, Gooligowda said AICC general secretary and Karnataka in-charge Randeep Singh Surjewala had asked chief minister Siddaramaiah prior to the Assembly elections to place all the five  guarantee scheme cards before the deity.

"A day before the Assembly elections, on 9 May, Siddaramaiah, minister K.J George and I visited Chamundeshwari Temple in Mysuru, and placed all the five guarantee cards before the goddess. The Rs 1.18 lakh is a thanks-giving amount to the deity from the Congress, which went on to win 135 seats in the polls," Gooligowda said.

The Gruha Lakshmi scheme was launched by Congress leaders Mallikarjun Kharge and Rahul Gandhi on 30 August in Mysuru. It was one of the five guarantees of the Congress government that were to prove a game-changing election plank for the party's return to power after a decade.

Prior to the official launch of the scheme too, Siddaramaiah and others had visited the Chamundeshwari Temple to donate Rs 2,000.

The Chamundeshwari Temple is located atop the Chamundi hills in Mysuru, a shrine to this fierce form of Shakti who was the tutelary deity revered by the maharajas of Mysuru for centuries.

Besides the goddess, who presumably does not need this empowerment for her part, the Gruha Lakshmi scheme had already benefitted 1 crore women till October 2023, according to advertisements released by the Karnataka government in the media.