Kailashpati Mishra, Patna
Lok Sabha Elections : Political parties may talk about half the population in elections, but are stingy in giving them tickets. This time, the country’s largest party BJP has not shown big heart in giving tickets to women in Bihar. The party has not fielded a single woman candidate in Bihar. However, in the BJP-led NDA alliance, JDU and LJP (Ra) have given tickets to two women candidates each.
At the same time, in the grand alliance, RJD has given tickets to maximum six women candidates this time. This is the situation regarding women in Bihar, when in the last elections, women had voted more than men in 32 Lok Sabha seats. At the same time, the vote percentage of women has also increased by ten percent in the last two Lok Sabha elections.
Women candidates on one fourth of all Lok Sabha seats in Bihar
Out of all 40 Lok Sabha seats in Bihar, big parties have fielded women candidates in 10 seats. If seen this way, this number is one fourth. RJD has made its candidates Misa Bharti from Patliputra, Rohani Acharya from Saran, Ritu Jaiswal from Shivhar, Bima Bharti from Purnia, Archana Ravidas from Jamui and Anita Devi Mahato from Munger.
Whereas, JDU has given ticket to former MP Lovely Anand from Sheohar and Vijayalakshmi from Siwan. At the same time, LJP (RA) has fielded outgoing MP Veena Devi from Vaishali and Shambhavi from Samastipur. Still, this is less than the 33 percent reservation in the Lok Sabha under the Nari Shakti Vandan Act, which is going to be implemented from 2029. Under this Act, about 13 Lok Sabha seats in the state will be reserved for women.
Three MPs each were elected in 2014 and 2019
In the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, Veena Devi became MP from Munger on LJP ticket, Rama Devi of BJP from Shivhar and Ranjit Ranjan became MP from Supaul on Congress ticket. Whereas, in the 2019 general elections also, BJP’s Rama Devi from Shivhar, LJP’s Veena Devi from Vaishali and JDU’s Kavita Singh from Siwan became MPs.
Bihar had the maximum number of nine women MPs in the 1984 Lok Sabha elections.
In the 1984 Lok Sabha elections, Bihar had the maximum number of nine women MPs. Among these, Prabhavati Gupta was elected MP from Motihari on Congress ticket and Kishori Sinha from Vaishali was elected MP on Congress ticket. Similarly, Ramdulari Singh from Sheohar, Chandrabhanu Devi from Ballia, Madhuri Singh from Purnia, Manorama Singh from Banka and Krishna Shahi became MPs on Congress ticket. Sumati Oraon became MP from Lohardaga on Congress ticket and Kamala Kumari from Palamu. Earlier in 1962, in the general elections held on 53 seats, eight women had reached Parliament.
Two women MPs were elected from Bihar in the country’s first Lok Sabha elections.
In the first Lok Sabha elections of 1951, voting was held on 53 seats of Bihar. Of these, only two women were elected MPs. In this, Tarakeshwari Devi on Congress ticket from Patna East and Sushma Sen on Congress ticket from Bhagalpur South were included. At the same time, in the 1957 Lok Sabha elections held for 53 seats, seven women were elected. Among them, Debi Soren of Jharkhand Party was elected from Dumka, Shakuntala Devi of Congress from Banka, Tarakeshwari Devi of Congress from Barh, Satyabhama Devi of Congress from Nawada, Vijaya Raje of CNSPJP from Chatra and Lalita Rajyalakshmi of CNSPJP was elected from Hazaribagh.
Last time maximum 72.41 percent women had voted in Katihar.
In the Lok Sabha elections 2019, women voted more than men in 32 Lok Sabha seats of Bihar. Among these, maximum number of women had cast their votes in Katihar Lok Sabha constituency. The percentage of women votes in the Lok Sabha seats of Seemanchal was higher as compared to other Lok Sabha seats of the state.
In Katihar, 72.41% women voted, while only 63% men voted. More than 60% of the voters cast their votes in most of the seats including 71.68% in Supaul, 70.04% in Kishanganj, 69.43% in Araria and 68.13% in Purnia.
At the same time, if we look at the total voting in 2014, the voting percentage of women was 59.92 percent, while that of men was only 55.26 percent. The seats where the voting percentage of women was high in that election were 72.37% in Katihar, 71.64% in Supaul, 70.37% in Kishanganj, 69.39% in Araria, 68.15% in Purnia, 67.13% in Begusarai, 66.74% in Samastipur, It was 66.62% in Vaishali and 65.12% in Ujiarpur, while the voting percentage of men was not more than 65 percent in any of the total 40 parliamentary seats of Bihar.
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