Number of women MPs elected to the Lok Sabha drops
The 18th Lok Sabha will have 74 women Members of Parliament (MP), marking a slight dip from 2019 when 78 women MPs were elected.
The 18th Lok Sabha, elections for which concluded with the announcement of results on Tuesday, will have 74 women Members of Parliament (MP), marking a slight dip from 2019 when 78 women MPs were elected to the Lower House of the Parliament, data shows.
Women constitute 13.6% members of the new Lok Sabha in 2024, according to Election Commission of India’s (ECI) data, as against 14.3% of all members in the 17th Lok Sabha elected in 2019.
Overall, a total of 797 women contested the 2024 general elections that were held in seven phases from April 19 to June 1. The results for the elections were announced on Tuesday.
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This was the first general election to be held since the introduction of the Women’s Reservation Bill, 2023 in the Lok Sabha. The bill, which is yet to come into effect, aims to reserve one-third of the seats in the Lok Sabha and state legislative assemblies for women.
To be sure, before the slight dip in the 2024 elections, the number of women MPs in the Lower House was seeing a slow, but steady, uptick. The representation of women MPs was 62 (constituting 11.4% of the total strength of the House) in 16th Lok Sabha which was elected in 2014, 58 (10.7%) in the 15th Lok Sabha that was elected in 2009, while 45 (8.3%) women were elected in the 2004 elections, and 49 (9%) in the 1991 elections.
As per ECI’s data, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) fielded 69 women candidates, of which 30 or 43.4% won. In 2019, the BJP fielded 56 women candidates, of which 41 or 73.2% won.
In case of the Congress, out of the 41 women candidates, 13, or 34%, won in the 2024 elections. In 2019, only six of its 52 women candidates fielded by the Congress were elected.
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The Trinamool Congress (TMC) played an important role in maintaining the decent representation of women in the Lok Sabha with 11 of its women candidates winning in 2024 against nine in 2019. The TMC had fielded 12 women in the 2024 polls.
Other parties with significant female representation include Lok Janshakti Party (Ram Vilas) and Nationalist Congress Party, each with 40% women candidates. The Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) and Biju Janata Dal (BJD) both have 33 % female representation, while the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) has 29 %, and the Samajwadi Party (SP) has 20%.
Four winning women candidates are from SP, three from Dravida Munnetra DMK, two each from Janata Dal (United) and Lok Janshakti Party (LJP). Besides, one candidate each has won from Telugu Desam Party, Nationalist Congress Party (Sharadchandra Pawar), Yuvajana Sramika Rythu Congress Party, and Rashtriya Janata Dal, among others.
Some of the prominent women MPs elected this time include Congress’ Kumari Selja, BJP’s Kangana Ranaut and Hema Malini, Samajwadi Party’s Dimple Yadav and Iqra Chaudhry RJD’s Misa Bharti , TMC’s Mahua Mahua Moitra, DMK’s Kanimozhi Karunanidhi, and NCP’s Supriya Sule, among others.
Two of the women MPs elected in the latest elections are also among the youngest MPs – Priya Saroj (25) of Samajwadi Party elected from Machhlishahr in Uttar Pradesh, and Congress’s Sanjana Jatav (25) from Bharatpur in Rajasthan.
However, Amethi’s incumbent MP Smriti Irani and Sultanpur MP Maneka Gandhi were among the key parliamentarians who lost this time.
TMC’s Kakoli Ghosh Dastidar, who won from West Bengal’s Barasat constituency, stressed on the broader need for representation of women in Parliament. “Our leader has been feeling more and more women in state or general elections even before the women’s reservation bill was passed. Of the 29 winning candidates of TMC this time 38% are women… If more political parties give opportunities to women the representation of women will further increase in the Parliament. Sadly, not all parties believe in equal opportunity and equal rights for women,” she said.
In case of state-wise performance, the maximum number of women candidates have won from West Bengal at 11 and all of them from TMC. It is followed by Maharashtra (7) and Uttar Pradesh (7), Madhya Pradesh (6), Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu, at five each. Meanwhile, Kerala is the only major state having no women elected this time.