With 67 of 405 candidates named so far women, BJP surpasses 2019 peak

Aditi Tandon

New Delhi, March 26

With the declaration of the sixth list of Lok Sabha candidates on Tuesday, the ruling BJP has surpassed its 2019 peak of fielding 53 women candidates among 437 in all.

16.54% ticket allotted to women

• 16.54 per cent of the 405 Lok Sabha candidates declared by the BJP as of Tuesday are women
• In 2019, the women candidates cumulatively made up 12.12 per cent of all BJP candidates

LS poll women nominees

2009: 636 in fray/59 won

2014: 670 in fray/61 won

2019: 724 in fray/78 won

Actors, activists among those in fray

The BJP lists feature women nominees from all sections of society — veteran parliamentarians like Maneka Gandhi and actors like Hema Malini and Kangana Ranaut to survivors of violence like Sandeshkhali’s Rekha Patra and royals like Amrita Roy in Bengal’s Krishnanagar

Out of 405 Lok Sabha poll candidates announced by the party so far, 67 (16.54 per cent) are women. In 2019, the women candidates cumulatively made up 12.12 per cent of all BJP nominees. The Congress has so far fielded 26 (13.40 per cent) women out of 194 candidates declared so far. In the previous elections, the Congress had fielded 54 women, one more than the BJP.

The BJP lists feature women nominees from all sections of society—veteran parliamentarians like Maneka Gandhi and actors like Hema Malini and Kangana Ranaut to survivors of violence like Sandeshkhali’s Rekha Patra and royals like Amrita Roy in Bengal’s Krishnanagar.

With more candidates to be announced, the BJP is likely to field more women for the 18th General Election.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who led the passage of the women’s reservation law in the outgoing Lok Sabha, has instructed party leaders to field women wherever possible. Those in the fray this year include women who have taken strong ideological positions against the Congress-led INDIA alliance members on a range of issues.

Rekha Patra, fielded from Basirhat in West Bengal, is one of the victims in the Sandeshkhali violence and has been vocal against TMC leader Sheikh Shahjahan.

Basirhat is a TMC stronghold on the southern-most fringes of North 24 Parganas district with Patra, a housewife, from a faraway hamlet in the Sunderbans delta emerging as a face of the BJP’s offensive against the ruling TMC leaders’ alleged atrocities against women.

In Kerala’s Alathur, the BJP has fielded TN Sarasu, a retired principal of Victoria Government College, Palakkad. Sarasu, who hails from the SC community, had been vocal against the activities of Left leaning Students’ Federation of India on the campus.

PM Modi on Tuesday spoke to both Rekha Patra and Sarasu hailing the former as “Shakti Swaroopa”, days after he attacked Congress’ Rahul Gandhi for his remarks against “Shakti” — something Gandhi said had been misconstrued.

“You are Shakti Swaroopa who sent powerful people to jail for their wrongs. We will together fight for the honour of women, not just in Basirhat, but also across Bengal,” PM told Patra. In his call to Sarasu, the PM lauded her courage as an academic.

Other prominent women candidates on the BJP list are actor Kangana Ranaut, who has been publicly taking positions against members of the INDIA bloc on a range of issues, and Rajmata Amrita Roy, party nominee against TMC’s Mahua Moitra in Krishnanagar.

Roy is a legatee of Raja Krishnachandra Roy, the erstwhile king of Krishnanagar, who contributed to the development of Sanatan Dharma in the times of the British and Siraj-ud-Daulah.

The BJP has been attacking INDIA bloc member DMK and its leaders for anti-Sanatan remarks.