CHENNAI: A new set of women will be occupying 33 per cent of the seats of power in Tamil Nadu after the results of the local bodies elections are announced.

With the memory of 1996, when men `let' women win seats reserved for them and then usurped their powers, especially at the panchayat level, still fresh in the minds of people, the looming issue is whether the 2006 elections will see a repeat of that situation.

The fear, in some quarters, is that with patriarchy strongly entrenched in the system, the men will try to take over the powers of the women who win the elections, yet again.

"While we believe that it will not be on the scale that it was in the past, especially when women's reservation had just been introduced, we are sure that men, at least in some areas, will make efforts to keep the women behind the scenes," says G. Palanithurai, Co-ordinator, Rajiv Gandhi Chair for Panchayati Raj, Gandhigram Rural University.

Improvement

"There has been much improvement since women were first elected to local bodies. In the beginning, the men, husbands or other kin, used to attend meetings and even take cheques on behalf of the women. However, media attention and some strict action by the Government led to increased awareness and brought the women back in," says Mr. Palanithurai.

"Learnt from experience"

Ossie Fernandes of the Tamil Nadu NGO Alliance for Empowerment of Panchayats says a lot more women are more aware these days and have learnt from the experience of others over the last 10 years. "There are more panchayat women presidents today who are playing an active role than they were in 2001."

Yet, it cannot be ignored that the threat of `takeovers' is hardly remote. Women can turn out to be merely figureheads, and not those in command.

Activists working in the panchayati raj domain are sure there will be attempts post-elections to usurp power and interfere in the running of the office from time to time, unless an effort is made to nip it in the bud.

Training for the winners, District Collectors and other local bodies officials is seen as key in helping women keep and execute the powers of their offices.

The Alliance has already conducted training for about 5,000-6,000 ward members on their rights and duties and on the poll process itself. Mr. Fernandes says it will be bolstered with more training programmes covering all the rungs of local body governance.

Training sessions

Gandhigram Rural University, along with the Government-run State Institute of Rural Development, has expressed keen interest in training the women.

The sessions are expected to start almost immediately after the election results are announced.

Previous women presidents, who now have some `icon-value', will be used to train the newly elected women.

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