The AIMIM, which has 20 sitting women GHMC Corporators, has never allotted an Assembly constituency seat to a woman candidate in it's 96-year-old history.
Published Nov 17, 2023 | 9:00 AM ⚊ Updated Nov 17, 2023 | 3:16 PM
AIMIM President Asaduddin Owaisi campaigning ahead of the 2023 Telangana Assembly elections. (Supplied)
It is well known that the AIMIM was the only party that opposed the landmark Women’s Reservation Bill in Parliament. Equally well known is the reason its president Asaduddin Owaisi gave for opposing the Bill.
The Hyderabad parliamentarian said the landmark bill would provide reservation only to “savarna women”. He asked why Backward Class (BC) and Muslim women — who have even lower representation in Parliament — were not being given any quota.
In the run-up to the Telangana Assembly elections on 30 November, speculation was rife on social media that the AIMIM could announce Syeda Falak, an international karate athlete, as its Jubilee Hills candidate in a groundbreaking move.
However, that hope was dashed on 6 November, when the party announced Mohammed Rashed Farazuddin, a former corporator from Shaikhpet, as its candidate for the seat.
As surprising as it might have appeared then, history has always been on the side of what happened that day.
This is because the 96-year-old political outfit, given its present form by Asaduddin’s grandfather Abdul Wahed Owaisi, has never fielded a woman candidate in the Assembly elections.
The AIMIM, which emerged as the second-largest party — second only to the TRS (now the BRS) — in Telangana in 2018, has seven sitting MLAs in the Assembly.
No women candidate from AIMIM in Telangana Assembly polls. (South First)
This time around, the party has announced candidates for nine seats, including Rajendra Nagar and Jubilee Hills, of the total 119 in the Assembly.
The AIMIM also has 44 corporators after winning as many seats in the 2020 Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC). Of them, 20 are women. In the 2016 GHMC elections, 19 of the 44 AIMIM corporators were women.
It should be noted that 50 percent of the seats were directly reserved for women in the last GHMC elections, which were conducted in 2020.
However, there were more men candidates, reportedly, than women in the list released by the Telangana State Election Commission (TSEC).
Incidentally, V Bhanumathi, a Hindu OBC candidate, won the Borabanda municipal division byelection held in 2013 on an AIMIM ticket after the sitting corporator was disqualified.
Meanwhile, when South First analysed the AIMIM’s Uttar Pradesh website — as no other website of the party could be found online — at least 14 significant leadership posts, including national leaders and state presidents, were all headed by male members.
Among the other political parties in Telangana, the ruling BRS has fielded six women candidates — Sunitha Laxma Reddy, Sabitha Indra Reddy, G Lasya Nanditha, Gongidi Sunitha, B Haripriya Naik, and M Padma Devender Reddy.
For the BJP, women candidates will be contesting on 13 seats — the highest by any political party in the state.
Women candidates from major political parties in Telangana Assembly polls. (South First)
These women candidates are Amarajula Sridevi, T Aruna Tara, Bodiga Shobha, Rani Rudrama Reddy, Megha Rani, K Niveditha Reddy, Ch Srilatha Reddy, Bhukya Sangeetha, Rao Padma, C Keerthi Reddy, Annapurnamma Aleti, Boga Sravani, and Kandula Sandhya Rani.
While the numbers amount to a mere over 5 percent of the total candidates for the BRS, they are over 8 percent for the BJP.
When it comes to the Congress, considered to be one of the foremost rivals of the BRS in Telangana, the party has fielded nine women (around 7 percent).
These candidates are Kota Neelima, P Chittem Reddy, Saritha Thirupathaiah, N Padmavathi Reddy, Singapuram Indira, Yeshashwani Memidila, Konda Surekha, D Anasuya Seethakka, and GV Vennela.
The Bahujan Samajwadi Party’s (BSP) Telangana wing has allotted tickets to 11 women candidates, nine of whose nominations have been accepted.
These women candidates are Uyaka Indira, Jamuna Rathode, Dasari Usha, A Laxmi, KS Ramulu, KN Kistappa, BS Srinivasulu, M Priyadarshini, and G Parvathi Naik. The party has also fielded a transperson C Pushpita Laya (Warangal East), who is said to be the first-ever candidate from the community.
E Venkatesu, a professor with the Department of Political Science at the University of Hyderabad (UOH), said he believed that the AIMIM allotting tickets to women members for municipal elections was inevitable due to the constitutional mandate.
“The AIMIM was the only party to oppose the Women’s Reservation Bill on the grounds of internal reservation for Muslim women, which was quite a progressive step. But when it comes to internal democracy, there has been a gender gap,” he told South First.
The professor held patriarchy and religious beliefs responsible for women leaders everywhere not getting their share of political space.
“All religious beliefs are basically ruled by tradition, whereas our Constitution is a modern one, trying to make the society more democratic,” he explained.
K Nageshwar, a noted political analyst and former member of the Andhra Pradesh Legislative Council, said one of the main characteristics of all the religion-based parties was to oppose women’s empowerment because fundamentalism always supports patriarchy.
“Any religious political party — whether from Islam, Hinduism, Christianity or Sikhism — is always opposed to women. So, there’s no surprise. The AIMIM is a patriarchal party, a fundamentalist party. So, obviously, the male members don’t like women to be on a par with them,” he said.
“Hindu fundamentalists oppose the entry of women into Sabarimala temple, and Muslim fundamentalists oppose the ablation of triple talaq, like the AIMIM opposed the verdict in the Shah Bano case,” Nageshwar, who is also a former journalist and currently a professor at Osmania University, told South First.
V Srilata, a Political Science professor at Osmania University, viewed that albeit more women are getting educated and also holding several key positions in society, they are still not seen as decision-makers.
“Women are not conditioned in the direction where they could stand for decision-making. One reason can be because we don’t have that social structure. Even the AIMIM is following the same path. They have very narrow-minded education and still follow the values of a close-ended society, not a broad-minded one,” she said.
Venkatesu, who is also a member of CSDS Lokniti, also said all the mainstream political parties — the Congress, the BJP, the TDP, the BRS, the Rashtriya Janata Dal, the JD(U), and others — mostly fielded women belonging to the upper socio-economic groups.
“When you look at the socio-economic profile of the elected woman MLAs and MPs of big parties, where is the lower-caste and class representation?” he asked. “It is only the upper caste because they are financially empowered.”
He continued: “Secondly, they must have been born to a political family. Indra Gandhi was born to a political family, Sabitha Indra Reddy is the wife of a former minister, and then there is K Chandrashekar Rao’s daughter K Kavitha. Current GHMC Mayor Gadwal Vijayalaxami is the daughter of incumbent BRS MP Keshava Rao.”
Noting that the AIMIM was not an exception, he opined, “Consciously or unconsciously, this gender gap or patriarchal character exists in all political parties. What was the representation of women in the Congress? It never reached more than 10 percent.”
Noting that the AIMIM was unable to accommodate women as they had fewer MLAs — seven to nine only — and one MP, the professor said he believed that the party was also attempting to show itself as a secular outfit by allotting more tickets to women in the local body elections.
“When it comes to the local bodies, they are supposed to choose women — whether they are Hindus, Dalits, or Muslims. See the example of V Bhanumathi. This is because there is a reservation for women, and they will also show that they are developing some sort of a secular character,” he explained.
The AIMIM Women’s Wing’s former joint convenor Aisha Rubeena acknowledged that no woman has ever been given an Assembly election ticket by the AIMIM.
However, she also noted: “The AIMIM is very small party, with only seven MLAs, and they have been MLAs for a long time now.”
Therefore, they were more experienced on the job, which meant that whether the ticket was given to a man or woman, it would go to a new person, she told South First.
However, for political science professor Venkatesu, longstanding politicians holding crucial positions has been a trend in the Indian electoral democracy, which he believes is akin to a banyan tree.
“Rather than allowing grass to grow under their banyan tree, they chose themselves. Look at the communist parties or the Congress, or even non-religious political parties. We can’t find a culture of democratisation. Once you become a president or a leader, you will be in the same position until your death,” he remarked.
Asked whether women should be given a ticket in the Assembly elections, Rubeena, said the ultimate decision would be that of party president Asaduddin Owaisi. “He will give an Assembly election ticket to a woman when he thinks the time is appropriate,” she said.
According to her, the AIMIM has more women in elected positions in the GHMC because women work better at the grassroots than their male counterparts. “That is the reason the party gives them tickets: It, too, believes that,” she said.
Former AIMIM MLC Syed Animul Pasha Quadri said that if every political party made it mandatory to allot a certain number or ratio of tickets to women in the Assembly elections, the AIMIM would not be an exception.
“We are a small party in comparison to several others. How many women candidates were elected in the 2018 Assembly elections? Why should the AIMIM stand out? Where are the TDP, the BJP, the Congress, the BRS and the other parties?” the former journalist asked South First.
The calls and messages to the AIMIM chief Asaduddin Owaisi remain unanswered, South First will update the copy as a response is received.
Meanwhile, Venkatesu said he believed that the situation would not change unless the voice calling for reform came from within the communities that have been demanding representation on the basis of gender.
