Few women in election arena

Never ever has a Delhi Assembly election been fought so intensely on the issue of women security as the February 7 one.

Despite women issues inclusion in the agenda of almost all parties, very few women candidates have been fielded by the three key political parties, showing the lack of seriousness in giving the fair sex a chance to legislate on issues of women’s concern.

The Bharatiya Janata Party, Aam Aadmi Party and the Congress are aiming to win over women voters who constitute almost half of the 1.3 crore electors but women representation in their list of 70 nominees is abysmal.

The BJP has scored over others by fielding eight women candidates and also making a woman its chief ministerial candidate. The AAP has fielded six women candidates and the Congress has nominated five women.

In last year’s Assembly polls, there were 71 women contestants – an average of one candidate in each seat. In 2008, 81 women contested the Assembly polls while in 2003 there were 63 women nominees and in 1998 there were 61 women candidates.

While there were nearly five dozen women candidates in the list of validly nominated candidates, the final line up saw a drastic dip.

“Most women candidates file nominations along with their husbands or fathers so that they could be their covering candidates. Once the nominations of their husbands or fathers are accepted, the women nominees withdraw their papers on the last day of withdrawal of papers,” said a Congress leader.

A bitter truth about Delhi politics is that women leaders at the helm are often blamed for not facilitating the entry of women into politics and promoting them in their parties. “This is like blaming women alone for female foeticide,” she said.

In the coming election, there are 58.24 lakh eligible women voters. This comes to about 44. 8 per cent of the total 1.3 crore eligible voters. If like the last elections, the average voting percentage in the February 7 contests settles around 65 per cent then we can expect that at least 37 lakh may exercise their democratic exercise.

In a city known for public outrage over frequent rapes, the voters do not really favour women candidates. On an average, about 10 percent of candidates in Assembly polls in the city are women but less than five per cent of the winning candidates were women in the last two elections.

In the 2013 elections, the total number of contestants was 731 and out of these there were 71 women candidates in the fray and only three managed to win.

In 2008, out of 794 nominees there were 81 women nominees and only three managed to win, including the Congress’ chief ministerial candidate Sheila Dikshit.

In 2003, there were 739 candidates in the contest out of which 63 were women. Out of these, seven candidates managed to win. In 1998, out of 758 candidates there were 61 women and among these nine managed to win.

Increasing turnout

Interestingly, the drop in the number of winning women candidates over the last two decades has come along with gradual increase in the turnout in Assembly elections.
In 1998 the turnout was 48.99 and the number of winning women candidates was nine.

In 2003, the voting percentage was 53.43 and the number of victorious women contestants was seven. In 2008, the turnout was 57.58 per cent and the number of winning women candidates was three.

In 2013, the voter turnout was 65 per cent and the number of victorious women nominees was three.  

It remains to be seen how the three key parties deliver on the promises made to women voters during the campaign.

The BJP’s chief ministerial candidate Kiran Bedi has pushed corruption as an issue down the priority list and given women security the top slot. She has also decided to come out with a white paper on the issue and use civil defence volunteers for checking crimes against women.

Her AAP counterpart Arvind Kejriwal is promising CCTV coverage for to create deterrence against crimes against women. The Congress, which was embarrassed by the Munirka gangrape in 2012, too has promised to make tougher laws, recruit more women cops and gender training to government employees.

The AAP’s biggest promise is that of giving a stable and good government over the next five years and the Congress is harping more on the development that it carried out in the last 15 years.

However, the BJP has tactically scored over the other two by fielding a woman former police officer as its chief ministerial candidate by holding out the promise of changing the women security scene in the city.

The 5.8 million women votes in Delhi, hopefully, leave a notable impression on
the coming elections, whose result would be known on February 10, so as to pave the way for boosting their empowerment in the world’s largest democracy.