Percentage of women candidates in 2013 polls dwindles

The percentage of women candidates in the five poll-bound states has fallen compared to the 2008 figures, even though a B-school study shows the number of women voters is increasing gradually.

Updated on: Nov 23, 2013, 23:59:28 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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The percentage of women candidates in the five poll-bound states has fallen compared to the 2008 figures, even though a B-school study shows the number of women voters is increasing gradually.

Data collected by the Election Commission of India and the Association for Democratic Reforms, a civil society poll watchdog, shows only 7% of the 7,000-odd contestants in the Delhi, Mizoram, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh assembly polls in 2013 are women.

In 2008, as many as 7,520 candidates contested the elections in these states. The percentage of women voters stood at 8%.

A shocker comes from Delhi, which has 51 lakh women residents and a woman chief minister at the helm since 1998.

Just 17 women candidates are in the fray for the upcoming assembly polls slated for December 4. In 2008, 81 women candidates contested the Delhi elections.

The Congress — Delhi CM Sheila Dikshit’s party — has fielded more women candidates in the Capital compared to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Aam Aadmi party (AAP).

The Congress has six women candidates in Delhi this year. The AAP and the BJP have four and three women aspirants, respectively. The rest are contesting either as independents or from smaller parties.

“There are not many applications from women,” said a Congress leader.

A BJP leader added that “winnability” of a candidate was important; and not the gender.

Ranjana Kumari, director of non-governmental organisation Centre for Social Research, said the dwindling number of women candidates points at the bias towards women in big political parties.

“The Women’s Reservation Bill pending in the Parliament is the only road to political empowerment of women.”

Things are slightly better in the other states.

In Chhattisgarh, where the two-phase polling ended on November 19, altogether 85 women candidates — nearly 8.5% of the total 986 —were in the fray. The percentage of women contestants stood at 9% in 2008.

Madhya Pradesh, which is going to polls on Monday, has 190 women aspirants as compared to 226 five years ago.

In Mizoram, which goes to polls with MP, there are 2.8% women candidates as compared to 4% in 2008.

But Rajasthan stands tall as an exception. The December 1 elections in the state will see 168 women candidates contesting the poll battle. In 2008, the number stood at 154.

A study by Indian School of Business on voting percentage in assembly polls since the 1960s, however, says the number of women voters is on the rise.

According to it, the number of women voting for every 1,000 men increased from 715 in the 1960s to 883 in 2008.

Percentage of women candidates

State

2013

2008

Mizoram

2.8%

4%

Delhi

3%

9%

Madhya Pradesh

7.3%

8%

Rajasthan

8.04%

7%

Chhattisgarh

8.5%

9%

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

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