Women issues take a backseat in poll campiagn

INDORE: Security and other issues related to women might have hogged the limelight in recent times but they failed to rise to prominence during the election campaigns in Indore. This despite a significant rise in the number of women voters in Indore since the last elections. Most of the politicos still prefer conventional method of campaigning where they take 'ashirwad' from the elderly and move on.Their interaction with women is very limited and none has come forward to openly champion for the women's cause.
According to district administration sources, there are 10.3 lakh women voters in Indore region (nine constituencies), as compared to 7.1 lakh in 2008 state assembly elections.
Officials of the Woman and Child Development (WCD) department said that they had run awareness campaigns to encourage voting among women and have registered 15,000 new voters in seven projects running in Indore.
Community leaders working in colonies said that though a lot of awareness has been created that people should vote and even on using right to reject 'NOTA' option, but issues related to women and children did not figure in electoral campaigns. Anand Lakhan of Deenbandhu Samaj Sahyog said, " Politicians' tall claims include all issues including demand for bijli, sadak and pani but not those related to women."
Rekha Lakhe, 35, a resident of Tejpurgadbadi area, which falls under the Rau constituency, said none of the candidates has discussed their problem or spoke to them yet.
She said, "Imagine in this era of development, there are no toilet in our homes and one can think how much problems we face. And none is there to care. On Monday, both Congress' Jeetu Patwari and BJP's Jeetu Jirati visited our area but none spoke on problems of women and children."
"They only said, hume vote dijiye, hum aapke sare kaam karenge (vote for us and we will work for development here)," added Rekha.
Another women voter from the Scheme number 103 area, Laxmi Rana said that basic needs like school in the nearby vicinity, proper drinking water and sanitation facility are what they want but candidates are not ready to listen to us.
Ritu Goyal, a resident of Nanda Nagar, said that while women themselves are trying to raise the issue of inflation and rising LPG prices, candidates are tight-lipped.