Women candidates of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the local body elections will specially focus on the financial dependency and other problems of women in the State during the campaign.
President of the State unit of the Bharatiya Mahila Morcha Shobha Surendran told The Hindu on Wednesday that politicisation of Kudumbasree units and domestic violence would be among the major issues to be raised by women candidates.
Ms. Surendran said the main plank of the party would be development issues at the local level. Housing and other problems of the poor needed to be addressed. Developmental efforts would be completed only with the participation of women.
She said the BJP did not have much of a problem in identifying candidates for the 50 per cent of seats reserved for women as the party had already inducted women into its leadership, reserving 33 per cent of the positions for them. The UDF and the LDF were searching for candidates among Janasree and Kudumbasree workers.
She said that both the fronts were not pro-women. They did not even give elected women representatives a place in the policy making bodies of the party. Besides, parties such as the CPI(M) tightly controlled women representatives.
She said the present government had attracted the curse of women by allowing a free reign for the liquor and lottery mafia. While fake lotteries embezzled money from the poor, liquor barons deprived them of both money and health. The morcha would also highlight these issues during its campaign.
The regional conference of the morcha, which was held in Thiruvananthapuram on Wednesday, had highlighted the slogan ‘from kitchen to political power.' Despite the advancements in social and educational spheres in the State, women were lagged behind in political empowerment. This ought to be corrected, the participants decided. The meeting was addressed, among others, by president of the morcha Smrithi Irani.
