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Fewer women to contest in Maharashtra

The number of women candidates in the simultaneous election to the Lok Sabha and state assembly in Maharashtra has registered a sharp decline even as political parties vied with each other in assuring the fair sex about passing the constitutional amendment reserving 33 per cent seats for them in legislatures.

Only 11 women are contesting the Lok Sabha election this year against 19 in the 1998 poll while 45 women are aspiring for an assembly seat this time as against 247 in the 1995 assembly election.

The Congress and the Shiv Sena have fielded only one candidate each for the Lok Sabha election while the Bharatiya Janata Party has fielded two. The Nationalist Congress Party has put up three women and the Gondwana Gantantra Party two. Two independents are also in the fray.

Prabha Rau of the Congress, a former president of the Maharashtra Pradesh Congress Committee, is contesting from the Wardha parliamentary constituency in the Vidarbha region while Suryakanta Patil, who was elected to the twelfth Lok Sabha from Hingoli on a Congress ticket, is now in the fray as a Nationalist Congress Party candidate.

Nivedita Mane, who unsuccessfully contested the 1996 Lok Sabha election from Ichalkaranjee as an independent and later in 1998 on a Shiv Sena ticket against Congress strongman Kallappa Awade, will again try her luck as an NCP candidate from the same constituency.

Jaywantiben Mehta of the BJP is pitted against her old rival Murli Deora of the Congress in the prestigious Bombay South Lok Sabha constituency. The party has also fielded Dr Pratibha Tai Lokhande to take on NCP chief Sharad Pawar on his own turf in Baramati. The Shiv Sena has fielded Bhavna Gawli in the Washim Lok Sabha constituency where she will take on the NCP's Javed Khan and Anantrao Desmukh of the Congress.

In the 1977 parliamentary election four women had contested, which came down to two in 1980. Six women contested in 1984 and in the next Lok Sabha election their number increased to eight while in 1991 there were 34 women candidates in the fray. However, 42 women -- the highest so far -- joined the electoral battle in 1996 while 19 contested in the 1998 Lok Sabha poll.

UNI

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