Women Voters in Indian Elections
Lokniti - Centre for the Study of Developing Societies and the India Office of the Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung (KAS) organised a panel discussion on "Have women arrived in India politics" on Friday, June 10, 2022. The event aimed at discussing women's changing participation in Indian politics, both as a voters and as elected representatives.
Participating in the discussion were eminent politicians from six political parties of the country - Priyanka Chaturvedi, MP from the Shiv Sena; Sanjeev Jha, MLA from the Aam Aadmi Party; Alka Lamba of the Indian National Congress; Anila Singh of the Bharatiya Janata Party; Ghanshyam Tiwari of Samajwadi Party and Nawal Kishore of the Rashtriya Janata Dal.
The panel discussion was divided into three segments and each segment focused on a pertinent question related to women's participation in Indian politics and elections.
The first part of the panel discussion highlighted how the gender gap in voter participation in the country has been declining steadily over the last two decades. The panelists discussed the narrowing gap in turnout and what it means for Indian politics.
The second part of discussion focused on women as candidates. While women voters' turnout has grown by leaps and bounds in recent years, women's representation in law making bodies, both at the state level and in the Lok Sabha, still shows a poor record. The panelists shared their views on why political parties are reluctant to give tickets to women candidates.
For the last segment of the discussion, Professor Sanjay Kumar presented some Lokniti survey data to show that women still do not vote en bloc and their vote is divided in most elections. Professor Kumar also showed that women are no longer dependent voters and that the proportion of independent women voters has seen a constant rise over the years.
The event was concluded by a book release titled "Women Voters in Indian Elections: Changing Trends and Emerging Patterns" edited by Professor Sanjay Kumar and published by Routledge. ( Buy Here )
Media reports:
https://theprint.in/india/i-still-see-a-mens-parliament-says-up-bjp-spokesperson-anila-singh/992651/
https://indianexpress.com/article/india/past-decade-saw-increase-in-number-of-women-voters-book-7963725/
