NEW DELHI: Of the total 4,852 MPs and MLAs entitled to vote in the upcoming
presidential elections slated for July 17, only 9% are women. Or in other words, of the 10.9 lakh votes that will be cast, only only a little over a lakh of the votes will be by women.
An analysis of the
electoral college
by the
Association for Democratic Reforms
(ADR) shows only 451 of the 4,852 MPs/MLAs are women. Among MPs, Lok Sabha has 65 women MPs, that is, only 12% of the total strength is female. In the Rajya Sabha, it's even lower at only 10 percent: that is, of the total 1.6 lakh votes that will be cast, only a little over 16,000 will be from the 23 women MPs in the house.
The analysis based on affidavits of 774 Members of Parliament and 4,078 legislators from state assemblies analysed 10,91,472 votes of the total 10,98,903 votes that are to be cast. At the state and Union Territory assembly level, there are a total of 5.4 lakh votes, of which 9% will be represented by women. This equals to 363 women MLAs - from all over India.
Among state assemblies, Uttar Pradesh has the maximum amount of women votes, followed by West Bengal and Madhya Pradesh. Nagaland has zero percentage women votes, as it has no women MPs or MLAs.
Interestingly, of the total number of MPs and MLAs, 33% members have declared criminal cases against themselves in a self-sworn affidavit filed with the ECI before their most recent elections, said an ADR statement. "34% of Lok Sabha MPs, 19% of Rajya Sabha MPs and 33% of MLAs (all state assemblies/ UTs) analysed have declared criminal cases against themselves," added the ADR statement .
20% members have declared serious criminal cases against themselves, with MPs like Rajesh Ranjan alias Pappu Yadav (RJD), Becharam Manna (AITC) and Mohammed Iliyas Hussain (RJD) being some of the big names.
71% of the legislators voting are crorepatis.