The Bill was passed and received Presidential assent in September 2023, but it will only be implemented after a delimitation exercise is carried out. In the meantime, data of the first phase of polling shows that not much has changed.
While Parliament passed the Bill to reserve 33% of the seats in the Lok Sabha and state assemblies for women last year, political parties don’t seem to be in a hurry to field more women candidates, as only 8% of the candidates in the fray in the first phase of the Lok Sabha polls are female.
The Bill was passed and received Presidential assent in September 2023, but it will only be implemented after a delimitation exercise is carried out. In the meantime, data of the first phase of polling shows that not much has changed.
According to Election Commission of India data released on Monday, 134 of the total 1,625 candidates in phase one are female and 1,491 are male. The seven-phase elections will start with polling in 102 seats across 21 states on April 19. Among the states and UTs in phase one, Andaman and Nicobar Islands and Mizoram had the highest percentage (16%) of female candidates. Six of the 21 states/UTs in phase one had no female candidate. These are Chhattisgarh, J&K, Lakshadweep, Manipur and Tripura.
In the 2019 elections, 9% (726) of the total candidates (8,054) were women. Of those, 78 were elected to the 17th Lok Sabha and 575 lost their deposits, EC data shows. In a departure from other parties, the TMC had given 41% of its tickets to women candidates.
Meanwhile, an analysis of 1,618 of the candidates out of 1,625 in the first phase by Association for Democratic Reforms on Monday found that 16% of them had declared criminal cases against them and 25% had assets of over Rs 1 crore. The average assets of the candidates was Rs 4.51 crore, ADR said.
All the RJD candidates in the first phase had criminal cases, while the BSP had the fewest candidates with cases (13%).
