Last 12 polls saw just four women contest; secured 2,149 votes

Deepender Deswal

Tribune News Service

Hisar, October 24

The electioneering in the Ellenabad Assembly byelection has indicated surprisingly lesser participation of women political workers as well as women voters across the segment.

So much so that in the past 12 elections held in this Assembly segment, there had been only four women who had filed nominations to contest from here, drawing a total of 2,149 votes.

This byelection has only one woman candidate, Savita Kajal, among 19 contenders who has filed the nomination as an independent. She hails from the Bawani Khera region of Bhiwani district.

The Election Commission records showed that in the 1991 Assembly elections, Rajinder Kaur had contested the poll as an independent candidate and polled just 87 votes. In the 1996 Assembly elections, two women, Savitri Devi and Gomati, had filed their nomination papers as independent candidates. However, they too managed to draw only a paltry 490 and 219 votes, respectively.

A newly floated political party — Samast Bhartiya Party — had fielded woman Kusum Chaudhary as its candidate in the Ellenabad byelection held in 2010. Local residents said she had canvassed extensively during the campaigning. But she too had to be content with 1,353 votes.

A youth of Chaharwala village, whose wife is a panchayat member, said: “Most of the work of picking in the cotton fields is carried out by the women. Besides, they work equally with men in the fields, especially to take care of the cattle. But they are not interested in politics. The men of the house ask them to cast their votes for a particular candidate which they oblige,” he stated.

Admitting that his wife never attended the panchayat meetings of the district administration, he said women rarely venture out of the houses to partake in administrative works in this region.