Dark horse Uttar Pradesh bats for women's empowerment with record 38 women MLAs
Amidst all the hullabaloo created about caste and religion during the recent elections in Uttar Pradesh, one little fact slipped notice — the excellent performance by women. Although Uttar Pradesh does not have a good track record when it comes to women's empowerment, the state has now quietly scored well in this regard. When the 17th Uttar Pradesh legislative assembly convenes, it will feature a record 38 women MLAs, the highest number since independence. The most interesting factor here is that for all the political parties put together, tickets were given to only 96 women candidates.
BJP had given tickets to 43 women, the highest among all the parties. Of these, 32 women are MLAs today. Two women won from BSP and Congress, while one each from the Samajwadi Party and Apna Dal were also elected. While 38 out of 403 seats still comes only to a little over 9%, anything that is an improvement over previous numbers is commendable.
In comparison, of the 545 MPs in the Lok Sabha, 62 are women. This is again a mere 11 percent but is the highest number of women MPs ever in the Lok Sabha. In the first UP assembly election after independence, held in 1952, 20 women were elected.
In 2007, a paltry number of just three women MLAs were elected, but this number went up to an all-time high of 35 in 2012. In 2017, this number has gone up even more. Hopefully, this will be a long-term trend.
The advantage of having a higher representation of women in elected bodies is that women's issues get more prominence and laws related to women are passed after considering the opinions of the women in the assembly, where they tend to get a more sympathetic consideration.
In the 2012 elections too, BJP had given the highest number of tickets among all the parties to women. However, of the 42 women candidates, only seven women had managed to win. This time, despite only one more woman candidate, BJP's women candidates also benefited from the massive mandate and 32 were elected by comfortable margins.
