Parties dish out unfair deal to fair sex

Parties dish out unfair deal to fair sex
V V BalakrishnaFirst Published : 02 Apr 2009 03:51:00 AM ISTLast Updated : 02 Apr 2009 12:59:18 PM IST
HYDERABAD: All the political parties in the State have adopted an unfair approach towards the fairer sex in the elections, if one goes by the list of the candidates finalised so far for the elections to the Lok Sabha and the Assembly.
Albeit their tall talk of providing 33 per cent reservations to women in legislative bodies and extending support to a Bill in the Parliament if women’s reservation bill is introduced, the major political parties, in practice, seem to be higly gender-biased.
The Congress is a shade better than others: it gave five Lok Sabha seats to women, including D Purandeswari, B Jhansi, Renuka Chowdury and Panabaka Lakshmi. Heroines R K Roja and Vijayasanti are in the Grand Alliance list.
The Congress fielded 33 women candidates instead of providing 33 per cent seats for the Assembly, while the TDP came with a poor 17 seats. There are four women in the TDP list for the Lok Sabha. The TRS fielded no woman for the Assembly but allotted only one Lok Sabha seat for Vijayasanti.
The Opposition TDP, which always reposed faith in women voters for victory, ignored them this time, as the party “cannot take risk” in the current elections as they are crucial for the party. The party searched for `winning horses’ but it did not include many women. The Praja Rajyam Party (PRP), the Lok Satta Party (LSP) and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) too gave less priority to women in the Assembly elections. The same is the case with the Left parties. Even if the parties have allotted tickets to women, they are either seasoned politicians or relatives of senior leaders. Very few women who are fresh to public life found a place in the lists of parties.
“When I approached the TDP for a ticket, a politburo member told me that the party could not take a risk this time,” an aspirant and former MLA Katragadda Prasuna said. In the 2004 elections, the TDP gave more number of seats to women. “The party leaders told me that they could not take a chance this time like in the 2004 elections,” Prasuna said. Reason? This was going to be a fiercely fought election and winning every Assembly seat was a must to form the next government.
“As the parties were hunting for winning horses, women candidates did not get tickets,” a TDP woman leader said.
The situation in the TRS is very strange. Not a single woman finds a place in the Pink party’s list for the Assembly.
The TRS has fielded only one woman candidate -- Vijayashanti -- for the Lok Sabha. “I too feel bad that not many women have got seats,” actress and TRS secretary general Vijayashanti said. “Due to alliances, women could not get many seats in the Grand Alliance,” she added.