Politics

For the first time,78 women MPs in the 17th Lok Sabha Elections

by Ramsha-Rizwan
May 29, 2019 11:13

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The 17th General Elections has recorded for the highest number of women ever elected in the Lok Sabha.Out of 542 MPs ,78 of them being women will take oath as members in coming days.Reportedly,724 women candidates contested from across the country for the elections. However,previous elections witnessed 64 Women candidates and 52 in the 15th Elections. The celebrity women elected includes Smriti Irani, Hema Malini, Kirron Kher,Nusrat Jahan, and Mimi Chakraborty,

Smriti Irani won a thumping victory against Rahul Gandhi from is “home seat” in Amethi. Irani took him on in Amethi this year. Mimi Chakraborty who is a popular actor and model of West Bengal won in Jadavpur against Anupam Hazra of BJP.Hema Malini secured a second term in Mathura while Kher won in Chandigarh. Chandrani Murmu aged 25 has become the youngest parliamentarian in the country as a BJD candidate from the Keonjhar seat in Odisha. Murmu is an engineering graduate who secured 5,25,886 votes and defeated two-time MP from BJP Ananta Nayak to win the Keonjhar Lok Sabha seat .

The Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) manage to field only one woman candidate while the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) fielded 24 women candidates,followed by All India Trinamool Congress (AITC) with 23 candidate,the CPI(M) with 10 and the CPI with four women candidate. India is one of those countries that have highest number of female politicians in the world. Currently the Kodassery Panchayat in Kerala has 100% of elected members as women.Some of the Indian states like Kerala,Bihar,Madhya Pradesh,Uttarakhand, Jharkhand,Himachal Pradesh,Andhra Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Rajasthan,Tripura and Orissa have implemented 50% reservation for women in PRIs.Women roughly constitute 49% of the total population in India and despite increasing representation of women in Parliament,it is still 14% .Even after 72 Years of Independence,the parliamentary candidature fails to secure even 40% of women candidates and thus still lags behind in creating a equal balance.