Of the total sitting MLAs and MPs in the five southern states, a mere 5.93 percent are women MLAs, while 7.75 percent are parliamentarians.
The elections are scheduled to be conducted following the retirement of 56 members from the Upper House of the Parliament. (Creative Commons)
At a time when the world is abuzz with calls for gender equity, it is perhaps no surprise that women’s representation in the Lok Sabha has witnessed a steady increase over the past two decades and more, rising from a mere 43 women Members of Parliament in 1998 to 78 — out of 543 — in 2019.
This means that the women MPs account for about 14.4 percent of the total strength of the 17th Lok Sabha, which was elected in the last general election conducted in 2019.
The current Lok Sabha has the maximum number of women parliamentarians ever, as per the Union government’s data presented in 2022 — the 2014 election had seen 68 women MPs being elected, accounting for 11.87 percent of the Lok Sabha’s strength.
Meanwhile, a total of 24 sitting women MPs — out of 224 — are there in the Rajya Sabha, which passed the historic Women’s Reservation Bill in 2010.
As the Bill, which reserves 33 percent seats for women in the Lok Sabha and state Assemblies, was introduced on Tuesday, 19 September, Rajya Sabha Chairman and Vice President Jagdeep Dhankhar announced that the eight-member panel of vice-chairpersons has been reconstituted, with women parliamentarians accounting for 50 percent. He added that the percentage may go higher in the future.
The total number of eligible voters in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections comprised 47.27 crore men and 43.78 crore women, according to the Election Commission of India (ECI).
But what was surprising was that the participation of women voters stood slightly ahead of men — at 67.18 percent, while the men’s participation stood at 67.01 percent — in the 2019 general elections.
A total of 19 state Assemblies have less than 10 percent of women legislators. (South First)
However, when it comes to pan-India figures, including all the five states South, 19 state Assemblies have less than 10 percent women members.
States such Andhra Pradesh, Assam, Goa, Gujarat, Himachal Pradesh, Kerala, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Manipur, Odisha, Sikkim, Tamil Nadu, and Telangana have less than 10 percent of women MLAs, as per the data presented in the Lok Sabha on 9 December, 2022.
The state Assemblies with 10 percent or more of women lawmakers are Chhattisgarh (14.44 percent), West Bengal (13.70 percent), Jharkhand (12.35 percent), Rajasthan (12 percent), Uttar Pradesh (11.66 percent), Uttarakhand (11.43 percent), Delhi (11.43 percent), Punjab (11.11 percent), Bihar (10.70 percent), and Haryana (10 percent).
There are a total of 53 sitting women MLAs (out of a combined 893 seats) in the five southern states, implying that of the total MLAs in these five states, a mere 5.93 percent are women.
The highest share of elected women legislators is from Andhra Pradesh and Kerala with eight percent each — 14 women in Andhra Pradesh out of 175 MLAs, and 11 in Kerala’s 140-member Assembly.
This is followed by Tamil Nadu and Telangana, where five percent of the total sitting MLAs are women — 12 in Tamil Nadu out of 234 and six in Telangana out of 119.
While the number for MLAs have increased in the four states from previous years, it has fallen in Tamil Nadu — 19 women MLAs in the 2016 Assembly elections to 12 in 2021.
Karnataka is the only southern state that has completed its Assembly elections in 2023 so far. Ten women candidates — four percent — were elected out of the 185 women candidates who contested, two more than the outgoing 224-member Assembly led by the BJP, which had eight women legislators.
A total of 10 women MPs (out of a combined 129 seats) were elected from the five southern states in the 2019 general elections — 7.75 percent.
With three MPs each, Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh have the highest number of sitting women parliamentarians.
Total number of sitting women MPs and MLAs in five Southern States.
In Tamil Nadu, which had four women MPs in the 2014 general elections, the current women lawmakers are Kanimozhi Karunanidhi and Thamizhachi Thangapandian from the DMK and S Jothimani from the Congress.
There was no change in the number of women MPs in Andhra Pradesh as it continues to have three women MPs since the 2014 General elections. At present, the women MPs — all of whom are from the YSRCP — are Vanga Geetha, Chinta Anuradha, and Beesetti Venkata Satyavathi.
In Karnataka, there are two sitting women MPs — Sumalatha Ambareesh (independent) and Shobha Karandlaje (BJP) — elected in 2019, compared to just one MP in 2014, out of the 28 Lok Sabha constituencies.
When it comes to Kerala (20 Parliament constituencies) and Telangana (17 constituencies), both have one woman lawmaker in Parliament. From Telangana, Kavitha Maloth of the Congress is the sole MP, while from Kerala, it’s Ramya Haridas of the Congress.
In the past 25 years, across all states and Union territories, of a total of 21,161 MLAs elected, only 1,584 were women, as per a report.
This amounts to more than 92 percent of all MLAs elected during this time being men, while the average proportion of women elected in Assembly elections has remained constant at 7-9 percent between 1998 and 2023.
The share of women MPs in the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha currently stands at 14.94 percent and 14.05 percent, respectively, according to Union government data.
In the 2022 Gujarat Assembly elections, only 8.2 percent of the elected representatives were women, while in Himachal Pradesh, only one woman was elected.
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