Women aspirants wonder why election tickets so yonder in Karnataka?

Not fair for fair sex

Half of Karnataka’s voters are women. And, for all the claims on empowerment that parties make, women find themselves trudging through men and their lobbying to seek tickets to contest elections.

Determined as they are with every election and the one that is just six months away, women leaders are mounting pressure on parties for tickets.

Congress, which invited applications from ticket aspirants, has received 80 from women.

“Many women who applied are confident of fighting the elections,” Karnataka Pradesh Mahila Congress president Pushpa Amarnath says.

“I believe most women will get tickets in our party as we are in favour of women’s reservation. I will raise my voice inside the party.”

Pushpa urges women leaders across parties to fight for more representation.

Also read | Karnataka Congress receive 1,350 Assembly ticket applications, including LoP Siddaramaiah, Muniyappa

‘Lack of will power’

“We need more women in decision-making positions. It hasn’t happened all these years due to lack of willpower,” she says.

BJP state Mahila Morcha president Geetha Vivekananda says several women have approached her seeking a chance to contest the upcoming polls.

“I’ve raised the importance of political recognition to women on several occasions. I hope it will be realised this time,” she says.

According to women aspiring for election tickets, concepts such as ‘winnability’ and ‘sympathy’ should go.

A big reason why women don’t get tickets is because they are seen to lack winnability, a measure typically used for men.

Otherwise, tickets are given to women out of sympathy. “Giving the ticket to the wife of an incumbent MLA who dies, for example, is a common practice to gain sympathy votes,” one ticket aspirant in the BJP says.

Hubby as proxy

Women have political reservation of 50% in local bodies. However, umpteen examples are seen where it is the husband of the elected woman running the show.

With elections nearing, parties are looking to woo women. JD(S) legislature party leader H D Kumaraswamy has announced that he will appoint a woman as deputy chief minister if voted to power. Ironically, his party has only one woman MLA - his wife Anitha who represents Ramanagar.

A total of 134 women contested the 2018 Assembly elections, most of them as independents. At present, the Assembly has 10 women - six from Congress, three from BJP and one from JD(S).

In the last 65 years, 100 women have become MLAs in Karnataka.

“The phenomenon of low women’s representation is a chronic problem in Karnataka and it is across all parties,” says Tara Krishnaswamy, co-founder of Political Shakti, a group that works towards having more women in legislatures and Parliament.

“Women are not promoted or appointed as incharge of constituencies, but sent to Mahila wings.”

Tara explains that women are prevented from growing within parties. “The success of politicians and political parties is very much linked to the amount of geography they own. If you don’t have ownership, you can’t build a cadre or base inside the areas. If you don’t build cadre or base, they will not give tickets,” she says.

Karnataka has 2.5 crore female voters out of the total 5.06 crore, going by the 2018 election rolls.

‘Key to achieve equality’

“Women constitute a very important segment of India’s population. If equality and justice are to be achieved, women’s representation is a cardinal requirement,” political analyst P S Jayaramu says.

“In reality however, parties go by the criteria of winnability centered around caste, money and muscle power, with a large preference to men.”

Jayaramu says “male-dominated, patriarchal” society is also a reason for women being denied tickets.

“Reducing violence and conflict in politics can be achieved by having more women,” he says. “Will it happen? That’s a million dollar question.”