All-time record: LS to see 78 women lawmakers

The new Lok Sabha will be opening its innings with a new record— it will have the highest number of women MPs with 78 of the 724 women candidates winning the race.

It has improved the 2014 figure of 61, also a record then, that has jumped to 65 at one point following more women winning bypolls during the last five years.

While in 2009, there were 59 women MPs, their number was 45 in 2004 and 49 in 1999. Lok Sabha saw the least number of women in 1957, at 22.

This time, the giant killer among the women MPs is Smriti Irani, who defeated Congress president Rahul Gandhi in Amethi. Other prominent winners include UPA Chairperson Sonia Gandhi, BJP’s Pragya Thakur and Maneka Gandhi, NCP’s Supriya Sule and DMK’s Kanimozhi besides Sumalatha, an independent from Karnataka.

Among the prominent losers are Mahila Congress chief Sushmita Dev, TMC’s Moon Moon Sen and Congress’ Ranjeet Ranjan.

BJP’s Vadodara winner Ranjanaben Bhatt had won the seat with 5,89,177 votes, the highest among women candidates. TMC has fielded 40.5% women (17/42) as its candidate while BJD has fielded 33% women. Congress has six women winners while YSR Congress has four. Akali Dal, Shiv Sena, NCP, Apna Dal, NPP and BSP too have one each woman MP.

“The representation of women MPs in Lok Sabha is slowly improving from 5% in the 1st Lok Sabha to 14 % in the 17th Lok Sabha. Though the percentage of women MPs has increased over the years, it is still lower in comparison to some countries.

These include Rwanda (61%), South Africa (43%), UK (32%), USA (24%), Bangladesh (21%),” an analysis by PRS Legislative Research said.