The Hindu : Karnataka / Bangalore News : Only one woman MP from State

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Wednesday, May 20, 2009
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Karnataka

Karnataka - Bangalore

Only one woman MP from State

Bageshree S.

J. Shanta of the BJP won by a margin of 2,243 votes in Bellary

Tejaswini Gowda and Manorama Madhwaraj
had won in 2004
The Janata Dal (Secular) did not field a woman candidate this time

J. Shanta

Bangalore: Karnataka will be sending one woman representative to the Lok Sabha this year, with only J. Shanta of the Bharatiya Janata Party winning the Bellary (ST) seat. Though she won by a margin of only 2,243 votes, the victory is a landmark as she is the first Dalit woman MP from the State.

Ms. Shanta, a novice to politics, is the sister of Health Minister B. Sriramulu.

Two won in 2004

The 2004 Lok Sabha elections had seen the victory of two women from Karnataka — Tejaswini Gowda of the Congress and Manorama Madhwaraj who contested on the BJP ticket. The former, who beat Janata Dal (Secular) supremo H.D. Deve Gowda in 2004, came third this time from the Bangalore Rural constituency, where she was pitted against the former Chief Minister H.D. Kumaraswamy of the Janata Dal (Secular) and C.P. Yogeshwar of the BJP.

The only woman who made it to the second position in the race to the Lok Sabha was the former MP Margaret Alva of the Congress, who lost to Anantkumar Hegde of the BJP. This is a repeat of the results in 2004, when she contested and lost against Mr. Hegde, who has won from Uttara Kannada for the fourth consecutive time.

Raw deal

Women ticket aspirants, cutting across party lines, got a raw deal in Karnataka despite all parties repeatedly paying lip service to the issue of giving 33 per cent representation to women in Parliament.

Only four women were nominated by the major political parties. The Congress fielded Ms. Margaret Alva and Ms. Tejaswini Gowda in Uttara Kannada and Bangalore Rural constituencies respectively. Ms. Shanta was the only contender from the BJP. The Communist Party of India fielded Radha Sundaresh in the Udupi-Chikmagalur constituency. Though her candidature was supported by the Janata Dal (Secular), the party, which has a woman for its party symbol, did not field a woman candidate of its own.

Interestingly, five Lok Sabha constituencies in Karnataka (Mangalore, Udupi-Chikmagalur, Koppal, Shimoga and Raichur) which have more women voters than men did not have any women contestants representing any of the three major political parties.

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