17TH LOK SABHA TO HAVE A RECORD 78 FEMALE MPs VIJAYALAKSHMI RAJU LAW CRITIQUE Wed, May 29, 2019, at ,02:01 PM The 17th Lok Sabha has scripted a new record with the highest-ever number of female candidates becoming lawmakers. Out of 542 MPs who will take oath as members of the lower house of Parliament, 78 are women. Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal are the top among states, both having 11 female lawmakers each. With over 14 percent female MPs, this Lok Sabha will have the highest number of female lawmakers since 1952. In the 16th Lok Sabha, 64 women had won, while 58 women were elected to the 15th Lok Sabha. A Bill for 33 percent representation for women in legislatures is pending in Parliament. WHICH PARTY HAD THE MOST FEMALE CANDIDATES? A total of 724 women candidates contested from across the country with the Congress fielding the maximum women at 54, followed closely by BJP at 53. Both the BJP and the Congress gave tickets to not more than 12 percent female candidates each. Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamool Congress gave seats to 41 percent of women. Of the 17 female candidates, nine were elected to the Lok Sabha. In Odisha, Naveen Patnaik’s BJD fielded 33 percent women candidates - in seven of the 21 seats in the state. Of the seven, five candidates won. Among the other parties, the BSP fielded 24 female candidates, the CPM 10, the CPI four, while the NCP fielded one woman candidate. As many as 222 women contested the polls independently. The highest number of female candidates were fielded from Uttar Pradesh at 104, followed by Maharashtra (80). Sixty-four candidates have been fielded from Tamil Nadu, 55 from Bihar and 54 from West Bengal. Four transgender candidates contested the election independently, while the AAP was the only party to field a transgender nominee. But all transgender candidates lost in the polls. WHO ARE THE PROMINENT WINNERS? As many as 27 out of 41 sitting female MPs, including Sonia Gandhi, Hema Malini, and Kirron Kher, retained their seats in the election, but the likes of Smriti Irani and Pragya Thakur stole the show with their victories over their more renowned rivals. Irani emerged as a giant-slayer - this time scripting a historic win by dethroning Rahul Gandhi in the Congress’ home turf Amethi. Controversial BJP candidate from Bhopal and terror accused Thakur won against former chief minister Digvijay Singh. Other prominent names to enter Parliament are DMK candidate from Thoothukkudi Kanimozhi Karunanidhi and the BJP’s Rita Bahuguna, who won from Uttar Pradesh’s Allahabad constituency. The youngest is a woman too, At 25 years, 11 months and eight days, Chandrani Murmu has become the youngest MP ever. She won the Keonjhar Lok Sabha seat (reserved for Scheduled Tribes) on a BJD ticket by defeating two-time BJP MP Ananta Nayak by a margin of 66,203 votes. She will enter the Lok Sabha as the youngest member in the Lower House history. Until now, the record had been held by Dushyant Chautala, founder of the Jannayak Janta Party representing Hisar Lok Sabha constituency in Haryana in the 16th Lok Sabha. He is the grandson of well-known Haryana politician Om Prakash Chautala. HOW INDIA COMPARES WITH THE WORLD? A comparison of the latest data on national parliaments available with the World Bank shows that India is still far behind the world average as well as regional averages. According to a report, the global average of female lawmakers is 24.1 percent. India stood 149th in a list of 193 countries ranked by the percentage of elected female representatives in their national parliaments, trailing Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Afghanistan and dropping three places since 2018. The regional average of the European Union and Latin America and the Caribbean is already at one-third. Only three countries boast a female majority in government. Rwanda tops the list with women holding 61.4 percent of parliament seats, followed by Cuba (53.2 percent) and Bolivia (53.1 percent). The remaining top countries are Latin American, Caribbean, African and European: Mexico (48.2 percent), Grenada (46.7 per cent), Nicaragua (45.7 per cent), Costa Rica (45.6 percent), Namibia (46.2 per cent), South Africa (42.7 per cent) and Sweden (46.1 per cent).