Remarkable increase in the number of women parliamentarians in this elections
TCN News
The general elections of 2019 seems to have set a precedence of sorts with a lot of things happening for the first time.
This Lok Sabha elections has seen an increase in number of Muslim MPs, increase in women MPs, as many as 300 fresh faces entering the parliament, more young persons with at least 60 MPs less than 40 years, more educated MPs with more than 100 having passed class 12; stalwarts loosing for the first time and no party to claim leader of opposition (LOP) in the Lok Sabha.
The number of women who won this LS elections are 78 with maximum number of women winning from West Bengal and Uttar Pradesh with 12 and 11 each respectively.
While in the last two 16th and 15th Lok Sabha elections the women candidates were 64 and 52 respectively.
The maximum number of women candidates were fielded from the congress party with 54 women with BJP fielding 53. The total number of women who contested the LS elections were 724 from all over India. Of these more than 200 were independent women candidates.
The women MPs who won this election are:
| SN | Name | State | No of candidates |
| 1 | Chinta Anuradha, Goddeti Madhavi, Vanga Geethaviswanath, Beesetti Venkata Satyavathi | Andhra Pradesh | 4 (all from YSCRP) |
| 2 | Queen Ojha | Assam | 1 (BJP) |
| 3 | Rama Devi (BJP); Veena Devi (LJP); Kavita Singh (JDU) | Bihar | 3 |
| 4 | Jyotsna Mahant (INC); Gomtee Sai (BJP); Renuka Singh (BJP) | Chhattisgarh | 3 |
| 5 | Bharati Ben Shiyal; Geetaben Rathva; Poonamben Maadam; Darshana Jardosh; Ranjanben Bhatt; Shardaben Anilbhai Patel | Gujarat
| 6 ( All from BJP) |
| 6 | Suneeta Duggal | Haryana
| 1 ( BJP) |
| 7 | Annapurna Devi(BJP); Geeta Kora (INC) | Jharkhand
| 2 |
| 8 | Sumalatha Ambareesh (Independent – backed by BJP); Shobha Karandlaje (BJP) | Karnataka
| 2 |
| 9 | Ramya Haridas | Kerala | 1 (INC) |
| 10 | Poonam Mahajan (BJP); Heena Vijayakumar Gavit (BJP); Bhavana Gawali ( Shiv Sena); Bharati Pravin Pawar (BJP); Raksha Khadse (BJP) Pritam Munde (BJP) Supriya Sule ( NCP) Navnit Rana (Independent) | Maharashtra | 8 |
| 11 | Pragya Singh Thakur, (BJP); Sandhya Ray (BJP); Riti Pathak (BJP); Himadri Singh (BJP); | Madhya Pradesh | 4 |
| 12 | Agatha K Sangma | Madhya Pradesh | 1 (NPP) |
| 13 | Aparajita Sarangi, (BJP); Sangeeta Kumari Singh Deo (BJP); Pratima Bisoyi (BJP); Rajashree Mallick (BJD); Manjulata Mandal (BJD); Chandrani Murmu (BJD) | Orissa | 6 |
| 14 | Preneet Kaur(INC); Harsimrat Kaur Badal (SAD) | Punjab | 2 |
| 15 | Ranjeeta Kohli(BJP); Jas Kaur Meena (BJP); Diya Kumari (BJP)
| Rajasthan | 3 |
| 16 | Kanimozhi Karunanidhi, (DMK); Thamizhachi Thangapandian (DMK); Jothimani Sennimalai (INC)
| Tamil Nadu | 3 |
| 17 | Maloth Kavitha (TRS) | Telangana | 1 |
| 18 | Pratima Bhowmik (BJP) | Tripura | 1 |
| 19 | Mala Rajya Laxmi Shah (BJP) | Uttarakhand | 1 |
| 20 | Anupriya Patel (Ana dal); Sonia Gandhi (INC);
Sanghmitra Maurya (BJP); Keshari Patel (BJP); Smriti Irani (BJP); Hema Malini (BJP); Maneka Gandhi (BJP); Rita Bahuguna Joshi (BJP); Niranjan Jyoti (BJP); Sangeeta Azad( BJP); Rekha Varma (BJP) | Uttar Pradesh | 11 |
| 21 | Mimi Chakraborty, (AITC); Aparupa Poddar (AITC) Locket Chatterjee (BJP); Satabdi Roy (AITC); Nusrat Jahan Ruhi (AITC); Deboshree Chowdhury (AITC); Mala Roy (AITC); Mahua Moitra,( AITC); Kakoli Ghosh Dastidar (AITC); Sajda Ahmed (AITC); Pratima Mondal (AITC); Sougata Roy (AITC) | Uttar Pradesh | 12 |
| 22 | Kiron Kher (BJP) | Chandigarh (UT) | 1 |
| 23 | Meenakshi Lekhi | Delhi (UT) | 1 |
| Total | 78 |
Old timers
Kiron Kher, television and film actress, Meenakshi Lekhi, spokesperson of BJP, Hema Malini, film actress and politican, Maneka Gandhi, Union Minister all from BJP retained their seats from Union territories Chandigarh, Delhi, Mathura and Sultanpur constituency respectively.
Sonia Gandhi from congress retained her seat from Rae Bareli, Harsimrat Kaur Badal of Shiromani Akali Dal won once again from Bathinda.
Newbies
Among the new comers were Pragya Singh Thakur of BJP who despite all controversies surrounding her candidature and her campaigning strategies won a massive victory.
Mimi Chakraborty and Nusrat Jahan both well-known models and actress won in Jadavpur and Basirhat respectively.
Smriti Irani television actress turned politician won from Amethi defeating congress president Rahul Gandhi which was a huge surprise and a big boost to the party as well as to Irani’s political career.
Locket Chatterjee, Bengali actress turned politician from BJP won in Hoogly.
Remya Haridas, 32, years, a Dalit candidate from Congress party made history when she won from Alathur. A singer from a humble back ground whose parents are daily wage labourers, she became the second Dalit woman from Kerala to enter the Parliament. She is the only MP from Kerala state.
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Trans persons
Four transgenders had also contested but they all lost. One of them was fielded by AAP ( Aam admi party), the only party to give ticket to a trans person while the other three contested as independent candidates. 47 year old, Bhawani Singh, who contested from Allahabad lost to Rita Bahuguna of BJP.
Veterans, celebrities and others who lost
Mehbooba Mufti, president of PDF (people’s democratic Front)and ex Chief Minister of Jammu and Kashmir lost to Hasnain Masoodi of National Conference.
Atishi Marlena, an educationist, contested from AAP from East Delhi but lost to cricketer and a new politician of BJP.
Priya Dutt from Congress who was a MP from Mumbai north east earlier lost again to BJP star candidate Poonam Mahajan.
Jayaprada who had a successful stint when she was in Samajwadi party lost when she switched sides joining BJP. She was defeated by her former colleague Azam Khan of SP, who had also made crude remarks against her.
Another old timer who lost is Sheila Dikshit, who served as the chief Minister of Delhi for 3 terms from congress party.
K Kavitha, Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) daughter of Chief Minister of Telangana had won from Nizamabad in the previous elections but this time she had to concede defeat because at least 180 farmers who were unhappy with her had also contested alongside her.
Moon Moon sen another actress turned politician lost to Babul Supriyo singer turned politician of BJP.
Hindi film actress Urmila Matondkar, a fresh face fielded by congress lost with a huge margin to BJP candidate from Mumbai North.
Chandrani Murmu at age 25 is the youngest MP. Murmu contested from Keonjhar, Odhisa from BJD ( Bijju Janta Dal) that had fielded 33 women. Chandrani Murmu is an engineering graduate and won from a tribal belt.
States with no woman MP
No women have been elected from the states of Jammu and Kashmir, Arunachal Pradesh, Mizoram, Goa, Manipur, Nagaland, Sikkim and Himachal Pradesh. And none from the union territories either except Delhi and Chandigarh.
Still not enough
Considering the female population which is 48% of the total population of India, we need at least 175 women parliamentarians to make it count. Despite 78 women making it this time, the percentage of women MPs is just 14.6% which means we still have a long way to go to achieve 33% representation from women. All the more reason to strive for reservations for 33%.