Despite the tall claims by all parties of their endeavours to promote women empowerment in the political arena, a fair representation still eludes women in Vijayawada and Machilipatnam Parliamentary segments. The statistics available with Election Commission suggest that the major political parties-- Congress, TDP and BJP-- have sympathized with women, mostly for the sake of publicity.
A negligible number of women had been fielded by the major parties in Vijayawada and Machilipatnam Lok Sabha segments since 1952. Vijayawada has only two women MPs in 15 general elections. Komarraju Achamamba (INC) was elected in 1957 and Chennupati Vidya (INC) had won the polls in 1980 and 1989. Machilipatnam does not even have a woman MP so far. The numbers of women candidates for polls have been just 10 in Vijayawada (including the winners) and six in Machilipatnam all these years. Interestingly, both the segments had no women candidates in the fray in 1999, 1977, 1971, 1967 and 1962 polls. Ms. Vidya who had created a sensation in 1980 by defeating irrigation engineer K.L. Rao of the Janata Party. Komarraju Achamamba had drubbed Thammina Potha Raju of the CPI in 1957. Rajyam Sinhawas the first woman ever to contest from Vijayawada in first Lok Sabha polls.
