At 78 elected women MPs, the 17th Lok Sabha will have the highest number of women representatives ever. They will account for 14.39% of the entire strength of the Lower House, which was at 12.5% with a total 65 women MPs in the previous Lok Sabha.
This found a mention in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s speech to NDA leaders at Parliament’s Central Hall on Saturday. “This is for the first time in Independent India that such large number of women MPs are sitting in Parliament. This has been made possible due to women power,” Mr. Modi said.
With 40 women MPs, BJP has sent the largest number of elected women representatives to Lok Sabha because of the sheer size of its victory. It is followed by Trinamool Congress (9), Congress (6), BJD (5) and YSRCP (4), as per data compiled by Association for Democratic Reforms, which analysed 539 out of the total 542 winning candidates.
However, it is the regional parties that boast of a higher ratio of women MPs to their total MPs in the new Lok Sabha. Women account for 41.6% of BJD’s total strength in Lok Sabha and 40.9% of TMC’s strength in the House. TMC supremo Mamata Banerjee and BJD Chief Naveen Patnaik had pledged to give tickets to 40% and 30% of party candidates before the elections started.
Women account for 18.18% of the total winning candidates for Jagan Reddy’s YSR Congress Party (YSRCP). As far as the national parties are concerned, women MPs account for a mere 13.28% of the total winning candidates of BJP and 11.76% of that of Congress.
Women candidates also displayed a higher winnability factor or strike rate with 75.47% or 40 out of 53 women fielded by BJP bagging a Lok Sabha seat. Similarly, 71.42% of women candidates fielded by BJD won and 39.13% of women candidates given a ticket by TMC were elected. In case of YSRCP, DMK and NCP, all women candidates fielded by them were elected as MPs.
The 78 elected women MPs emerged winners out of the total 716 women candidates who fought during the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, which is a success rate of 10.89%. This is much higher than the success rate shown by male candidates of 6.41% with 462 male candidates winning out of the total 7,207 men who fought for a Lok Sabha seat this election season.
A higher success rate or winnability factor shown by women candidates is consistent with the past record. As per official data maintained from the second Lok Sabha onwards, women have always had a better winnability factor. During the 16th Lok Sabha, the winning percentage of women was at 9.13% and those of men was at 6.36%. ENDS
