With political parties reluctant on fielding more woman candidates because of an apprehension that their winning chances are slim the number of woman getting elected to the 147-member State Assembly has fallen drastically over the years.
Only 11 women have been elected to the House this time, which is two less than their number in 2000. In 2004 the number of women MlAs was 12 and in 2009, there were just seven of them. In 1995, the House had ten women members.The new 15th Assembly will have 10 BJD women MlAs while BJP’s Radharani Panda will be the lone woman member for her party. Congress does not have a single woman in its 16-member legislature party.
The women BJD MlAs are Sugnana Kumari Deo(Kabisuryanagar), Pramila Mallick (Binjhapur), Usha Devi (Chikiti), Basanti Mallick (Mohana), Raseswari Panigrahi (Sambalpur), Nandini Devi (Sanakhemudi), Rajashree Mallick (Tirtol), Seemarani Nayak (Hindol), Snehagini Chhuria (Atabira) and Tukuni Sahu (Titilagarh).Out of the 11 women MlAs, eight are new faces while Sugnana Kumari Deo, Pramila Mallick and Usha Devi of BJD are old timers, and the last two have been Ministers in the Naveen Patnaik Government.
According to the State Assembly data, 56 women have been elected to the House since 1936 and 20 of them elected repeatedly. Observers blame political parties for not fielding more number of women candidates during the elections because of an unreasonable apprehension that women have less chances of winning than men. “If political parties do not field enough number of women candidates in the elections, how can we expect to get more number of women representativesIJ The parties are only talking about women empowerment, but when it comes for action, they hesitate to do so,” said a women’s rights activist.
A total of 115 women candidates had participated in the Assembly polls this time, which works out to roughly 8 per cent of the total number of contestants. The ruling BJD, which keeps talking of ‘women’s empowerment’ on every conceivable occasion, had no more than 14 women in its list of candidates for the 147 Assembly constituencies. Still, it was ahead of other parties- the Congress had nominated just eight women candidates and BJP, nine.
The representation of Odisha women in the lok Sabha presents an equally dismal picture. Only two women Rita Tarai from Jajpur and Sakuntala laguri from Keonjhar (both from BJD) will represent the State in the lower House this time.
Almost all political parties had failed to field enough women candidates. A paltry 17 women were in the fray for the Parliament elections from the State out of a total of 197 candidates in the race. This gives a clear indication about how serious the parties are about 33 per cent reservation for women.