EC data show number of women candidates grew 16-fold from 1957 to 2019

Figures show number of women candidates has never crossed 1,000; flagging lack of political will, Centre for Social Research director says parties give fewer opportunities, harder seats to women

In 1957, there were just 45 women candidates contesting the Lok Sabha election; by 2019, this figure had risen to 726, Election Commission data show. The percentage of women in Parliament has increased from 4.5% in 1957 to 14.4% in 2019. The number of male candidates, on the other hand, has grown from 1,474 in 1957 to 7,322 in 2019.

This means that the number of men contesting has multiplied five times; for women, the growth has been 16fold.

In 1957, a mere 2.9% of candidates were women; in 2019, they made up around 9% of the total pool of candidates. However, the number of women candidates has never yet crossed 1,000.

Genderwise data are not available for the first Lok Sabha election in 1952.

A perusal of the EC data shows that in the second

Lok Sabha election in 1957, of the 45 women candidates in the fray, 22 won, indicating a 48.88% success rate. That has declined consistently ever since; in 2019, women’s success rate was just 10.74%, as only 78 of the 726 women candidates won their seats.

In the case of male candidates, their winning percentage dropped from 31.7% in 1957 to just 6.4% in 2019. This is not, however, a marker for any trends in the winnability of men and women; it simply reflects the fact that the number of candidates of both sexes has grown even as the number of seats in the Lok Sabha remained the same, experts note.

“This just shows the maturing of the Indian democracy and the fact that more and more women are entering the fray,” says political analyst Tara Krishnaswamy, cofounder of the NGO Political Shakti.

On the huge gap between the numbers of women and men candidates, experts say that women have much fewer opportunities to contest. “The winnability of women is higher, but there is a lack of will among parties to give them opportunities to contest,” says Ranjana Kumari, women’s rights activist and the director of the Centre for Social Research. Even when they do, she says, “parties generally give more difficult seats to women. They may be put up against strong candidates or those who can be categorised as having more muscle and money power.”

There is thus no level playing field, she says.