Gram Panchayats polls in Dakshina Kannada: More than 50% seats for women

More than 50% of the seats in Gram Panchayats in Dakshina Kannada district are reserved for women. The election will be held for 220 gram panchayats with 3,222 seats in two phases.

Of the 3,222 seats, 1669 are reserved for women and 1,553 are for general category. In the first phase, election will be held for 106 gram panchayats in Mangaluru, Moodbidri and Bantwal taluks for 1,681 seats (In reality for 1,631 as 50 candidates elected unanimously) in 541 wards. Of 1,681 seats, 868 are reserved for women. In the second phase, elections will be held in Belthangady, Puttur, Sullia and Kadaba taluks on December 27. Out of 1,541 seats in 497 wards, 801 are reserved for women.

In Mangaluru taluk, election will be held for 37 gram panchayats with 651 seats. Of this, 336 are reserved for women. In Bantwal, out of 837 seats in 57 gram panchayats, 433 are reserved for women. In Belthangady, out of 631 seats in 46 GPs, 327 are for women. In Moodbidri, the elections will be held for 12 gram panchayats with 193 seats, of which 99 are reserved for women. While in Puttur, 176 seats are reserved for women out of 343 seats in 22 gram panchayats. A total of 150 seats are reserved for women out of the total 285 in 21 GPs in Kadaba taluk. In Sullia, 148 seats are reserved for women out of 282 in 25 gram panchayats.

Among these reserved seats for women, 235 (total 304 seats) are for SC; 228 are for ST (total 268), 432 backward A category (total 738), 90 from Backward class B (total 186) and 684 in general category (total 1726) are women. Apart from these reserved seats, women can also contest in general category.

More women voters

Women voters outnumber male voters in Dakshina Kannada. Out of 10,39,217 voters, the has 5,26,288 women voters and 5,12,908 male voters. Though DK has 228 gram panchayats, Venoor, Pudu, Arambodi, Bajpe, Maravoor, Kinnigoli, Mennabettu, Kondemoola gram panchayats will not go for polling as term of these GPs have not ended and a few GPs have been upgraded by the state government.