Kerala has poor record of women representation in LS

NI Wire

New Delhi

Wed, 06 May 2009: 

Kerala is the first and foremost state in India known for attaining 100 percent literacy and as per a survey conducted by Transparency International in 2005 is the least corrupt state, but unfortunately the state is far from women’s representation in the Lok Sabha.

Participation of women candidatesas been increased gradually from 1 to 15 but the number of elected members has not seen much difference as the tally still sways between 1 and 2.

On an average, the representation of women in the successive Lok Sabhas from Kerala has remained between 1 and 2. In the Second and the Third Lok Sabha, the state saw no women representation. In the 1967 Fourth Lok Sabha elections, Suseela Gopalan from CPM got elected from the Ambalapuzha constituency, and again was re-elected for the Seventh (1980) and Tenth (1991) Lok Sabha from Alleppey and Chirayinkil constituencies.

The INC candidate Savithri Lakshmanan got elected twice for the Ninth and Tenth Lok Sabha from Mukundapuram constituency. The other woman who registered victory twice in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Lok Sabha was CPM leader A K Premjam.

Annie Mascarene was the first woman to represent Kerala in the Lok Sabha. She was elected to the First Lok Sabha in 1952 as an independent candidate from Trivandrum constituency.

It was only twice in the history of Kerala when the list of elected women candidates touched two-mark happened in Tenth and Fourteenth Lok Sabha in 1999 and 2004. It was only 10 percent of the total strength of Kerala in Lok Sabha.

In the 15th Lok Sabha elections 2009, there are merely 15 women contestants among 217.

Party wise, the Congress has fielded only 40 women candidates out of the 443 candidates in the entire country, which is even less than 10 percent. BJP is in no way better position as the party pitched only 43 women candidates off the 427 total candidates.

Left parties, which have vociferously supported the bill of women reservation, have the worst record as it has only given 5 percent ticket to women candidates. Among them, the CPM has fielded 4 out of 80 candidates and the CPI marks 3/45. Similar is the case with Samajwadi Party and the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) which have respectively fielded 6/75 candidates in UP and 2/28 seats in Bihar.