LS polls: number of female candidates increases from 7% in 2009 to 9.6% in 2024
Women show their identity cards as they wait to cast their votes for the fifth phase of the Lok Sabha polls, in Hajipur, Monday, May 20, 2024. (Photo: PTI)
From 7 percent in 2009 to 9.6 percent in 2024, the number of women candidates contesting Lok Sabha elections has risen steadily in 15 years, according to an analysis by poll organization ADR.
This year, 797 women are competing, or 9.6 percent of the total 8,337 candidates. This marks an increase from previous General Assembly elections, which recorded female representation of 9 percent in 2019, 8 percent in 2014 and 7 percent in 2009, the Association of Democratic Reforms (ADR) analysis shows. .
In the 2009 Lok Sabha elections, there were 556 women candidates, or 7 percent of the total 7,810 candidates. This number increased to 640 (8 percent of 8,205) in 2014 and further to 716 (9 percent of 7,928) in 2019.
This year, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leads among major parties with 69 women Lok Sabha nominees out of 440, representing 16 percent of the total candidates. The Congress follows with 41 women out of 327 candidates, good for 13 percent.
Significantly, smaller parties and regional players show a higher proportion of female candidates. For example, the Naam Tamilar Katchi has an equal gender representation: 20 out of 40 candidates are women, which amounts to 50 percent. The Lok Janshakti Party (Ram Vilas) and the Nationalist Congress Party each have 40 percent female candidates, of which two in five are women.
Among the prominent parties, the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) and the All India Forward Bloc have the lowest female representation at 3 percent.
Some parties with notable women representation in this year’s parliamentary polls are the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) and the Biju Janata Dal (BJD), each with 33 percent, and the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) with 29 percent. The Samajwadi Party (SP) has 20 percent female representation, and the All India Trinamool Congress (AITC) 25 percent.
Thirteen percent of the Lok Sabha candidates of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) are women and for the Bahujan Samaj Party the figure stands at 8 percent.
Parties like the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) and the Communist Party of India (CPI) have a female representation of 14 percent and 7 percent respectively. The Janata Dal (United) (JD(U)) and Shiv Sena have 13 percent female candidates each, while the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha has 33 percent female nominees.
Both the candidates of the Apna Dal (Sonelal) are women, TDP and BRS have 6 percent women candidates each, Shiromani Akali Dal and the Nationalist Congress Party-Sharadchandra Pawar have 8 percent women candidates each, while Shiv Sena (UBT) has 10 percent women candidates has. cents.
Independents, who form a significant part of the candidate pool, have 276 women out of 3,903 Lok Sabha nominees, which amounts to a modest 7 percent.
Other parties together account for 252 women out of 2,490 candidates, which amounts to about 10 percent.
These are the first elections since the passage of the Women’s Reservation Bill to reserve one-third of seats in Lok Sabha and state assemblies for women, reviving a bill that has been pending for 27 years due to lack of party consensus is blown in. The bill has yet to come into effect.
The current number of 797 female candidates in 2024 represents a 9.6 percent share of the total candidate pool of 8,337. Only two candidates from the third gender category are running in this year’s elections, both as independents.
During the first phase of the elections on April 19, of the 1,618 candidates participating, only 135 were women.
This pattern continued in subsequent stages, with female candidates remaining a small proportion of the total.
During the second phase, held on April 26, there were 1,192 candidates, 100 of whom were women. The Phase 3 elections on May 7 had 1,352 candidates, including 123 women.
In phase 4 on May 13, of the 1,710 participants, 170 were women. Phase 5 on May 20 had the fewest candidates: 695, with 82 women, while phase 6 had 92 women out of 866 candidates. In the final phase, scheduled for June 1, there will be 904 candidates, of which only 95 are women.
(Only the headline and image of this report may have been reworked by Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is automatically generated from a syndicated feed.)
First print: May 29, 2024 | 5:19 PM IST