2024 Lok Sabha elections There are several studies in India that have brought out the complex narrative on women’s representation in Indian politics. The increase of the number of female candidates only resulted to a small decline in the total number of women elected to House of Representatives.
Representation by women at polls
The trend is slightly upward over 15 years period with respect to female representation among voters.
2.9% was the percentage of female contestants during general elections in 1957 which has increased up to nearly 10% for this year’s election.
This shows that there has been a steady increase from previous elections: 7% (2009), 8% (2014) and 9% (2019).
Contributions from all parties
As far as political parties’ contribution to women’s representation for the upcoming Lok Sabha polls – Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Indian national congress (INC) and All India Trinamool Congress (AITC) dominate.
With its total nomination for Lok Sabha being 440, BJP leads with a percentage of sixteen for females among these nominees. In an all-inclusive figure of three hundred twenty seven Congress contestants, one hundred thirty five are female hence accounting for thirteen percent.
Notably, smaller parties and regional players fielded a higher proportion of female candidates.
Naam Tamilar Katchi achieved gender parity featuring fifty percent women candidates while other notable parties that had significant number of female aspirants include: lok janshakti party(ram vilas ram vilas paswan) with forty percent and national congress party having similar percentage figures.
Both JMM and BJD have stood at thirty three percent females while RJD is at twenty nine percent females. Samajwadi Party got twenty percent votes whereas AITC came fourth with twenty five percent votes.
Success rates and historical trends
The performance levels for women runners from one decade to another have witnessed ups and downs. The proportion of women MPs in the 18th Lok Sabha (2024) is greater than 13.62%. This slight drop was from the previous Lok Sabha, which had a maximum female representation of more than 14%.
National level news
There were mixed trends at state level with some states registering fewer numbers of women winners and others marginal increases.
This further indicates that there are unique political landscapes for individual Indian states and women’s status progresses unevenly as political representatives.
State-specific highlights
Odisha: The number of females elected fell to four out of twenty nine candidates, unlike seven in 2019. Mari Singh Deo (Sangeeta Kumari Singh Deo). There are also concerns that the dominance of candidates from royal backgrounds could marginalize grassroots leaders.
Assam: Amongst twelve female aspirants, only Bijuli Kalita Medhi emerged victorious as well. High turnout by women voters did not translate into many seats for them apart from one BJP woman candidate.
Chhattisgarh: Out of eleven available slots, three being held by females confirm that currently twenty nine women are vying. Each major party including Bharatiya Janata Party and Congress nominated three women but with limited success.
Maharashtra: Among these select seventeen contenders by major political outfits in a more crowded constituency pool, there were seven such who went on to becoming members showing tokenism rather than true reflection of genders amongst others.
Notable winners
In the recent election results for the year 2024, Hema Malini belonging to BJP, TMC’s Mahua Moitra; NCP’s Supriya Sule and Samajwadi Party Dimpur Yadav won seats after leading during campaigns as female contestants.
Newcomers like Kangana Ranaut and Misha Bharati also made headlines with their wins. The youngest winners include 25-year-old Priya Saroj and 29-year-old Iqra Choudhary of the Samajwadi Party.
However, none of the three transgender candidate Seats were won by independents in spite of high levels of participation. The total number of candidates competing is 8,360.
Global and national context
Gender representation in India’s parliament still lags behind other countries, even as female representation has increased.
India has fallen to the 143rd position out of 185 countries in terms of women’s representation in national parliaments according to Inter-Parliamentary Union’s Parline database.
In South Africa, 46% of parliamentarians are women; United Kingdom – 35%; United States – 29%.
China, Pakistan, Philippines and Vietnam all rank above India. This underlines a great divide on gendered worldscale.
By April 2024 India had a total number of 77 female parliamentarians accounting for only14.7 percent seats. These numbers are small just because last year Indian Parliament passed legislation that reserves one-third Lok Sabha seats for women but it is yet not implemented.
Their slow rate increase in recipients’ numbers suggests continuing persistence systemic and social barriers though.
