More women in Lok Sabha

While the media has been agog with all kinds of analyses and commentary on the outcome of the just-concluded Lok Sabha election, what has caught the attention of a sizeable section of people across the country is the increased number of women members getting elected to the 17th House. The exact number of women elected to the new Lok Sabha is 78, which is about 14 per cent of the total strength of the 543-member House. There were altogether 724 women candidates. This is a significant increase from 62 women members in the 16th Lok Sabha, with statistics showing that there were only 24 women in the first Lok Sabha formed in 1952. While the Congress party had fielded the highest number of women candidates (54), the BJP followed closely with 53. Among some of the other parties, the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) had fielded 24 women candidates, the Trinamool Congress 17, the CPI(M) 10, Biju Janata Dal 5, CPI 4, while the Nationalist People’s Party (NPP) and Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) had fielded one woman candidate each. The highest number of women candidates was seen in Uttar Pradesh (104), followed by Maharashtra (80), Tamil Nadu (64), Bihar (55), West Bengal (54), Punjab (24), Delhi (16), Assam (14), Tripura (3), and so on. The number of women members remained the same (24) in the second Lok Sabha formed in 1957, with data available on the Lok Sabha website showing that the number increased to 37 when the third Lok Sabha was constituted in 1962. The number of women representatives, however, decreased in the fourth Lok Sabha to 33, came down further to 28 in the fifth Lok Sabha and then even lower to 21 in the sixth Lok Sabha. The number, however, went up to 32 in the seventh Lok Sabha (1980-84) and further up to 45 in the eighth Lok Sabha (1984-89). But then, the number of women members suddenly dipped to 28 when the ninth Lok Saha was elected in 1989. Statistics further reveal that while there was a significant jump in the number of women elected to the 10th Lok Sabha (1991-96) – it went up to 42 – the figure, however, came down to 41 in the 11th Lok Sabha. The 12th Lok Sabha, on the other hand, had 44 women MPs, while the 13th and 14th Houses saw equal numbers – 52 female members. The 15th Lok Sabha (2009-14) however saw a major increase: it touched 64 – about 12 per cent of the total House strength. As has been already mentioned, it went up by only two in the 16th Lok Sabha. But then, though those advocating women empowerment and rights definitely have a reason to rejoice over the record number of 78 women getting elected to the new Lok Sabha, what must also be kept in mind is that India is still far behind in this aspect in comparison to some other countries. While the total number of women representatives in the United Kingdom Parliament stands at 32% of the House strength, it is 32% in the United States of America. Our neighbouring country Bangladesh too is ahead of India with 21%, while some African countries like Rwanda (61%) and South Africa (43%) are even better in women representation in their respective highest decision-making forum.