By Special Correspondent, TwoCircles.net,
Aizawl: Even as Lal Thanhawla was sworn in as the Mizoram Chief Minister by Governor Vakkom Purushothaman for a record fifth term in his political career here in Northeastern state Mizoram, the state has witnessed another rare happening with not a single female MLA being elected to assembly.
The irony is that Mizoram is the only state where women voters outnumber the men.
“From the Mizoram election results we can safely conclude that all the literature produced and discussions and seminars organized on the theme of gender equity and political participation of women have had no impact at all,” said senior journalist of the region Patricia Mukhim in one of her weekly columns.
Not just this time, during the last two decades in the state not a single woman has won to make their way to the assembly. This time, among the 142 candidates in the fray, female aspirants were only six, fielded by various political parties.
She also slammed Congress for not giving much importance to female candidates. “The Congress, which claims to be more women friendly even feigned to pass the 33 per cent reservation for women’s bill in parliament, is interestingly very quiet about fielding more women candidate out of 40 seats,” Mukhim added.
The Congress and the main opposition Mizo National Front (MNF) has one woman candidate each, while three women contested on the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) ticket. One woman joined the fray as an Independent candidate. Unfortunately, all woman candidates were defeated by male candidates of rival political parties.
Since Mizoram became a Union Territory in 1973 and a full-fledged state in 1987, there have been only three female legislators. Among them, a woman legislator of the MNF was a Minister in the government led by the late Laldenga in 1987. So when the political parties, intellect and the society at large, seems to be liberal and compassionate towards women empowerment and rights, the Mizoram election definitely has been a eye opener.
Out of the total population of 1,091,014, female voters outnumbered men by 9,806 in the total electorate of 690,860.