Political parties fail fairness test

Their posturing on women's issues and empowerment notwithstanding, political parties in the state have fielded only a handful of women candidates for the upcoming general elections.
Of the 26 candidates Congress has fielded, just one is a woman, sitting MP from Mumbai North-Central Priya Dutt. Similarly, the Bharatiya Janata Party, which has a pre-poll alliance with the Shiv Sena, has announced 24 candidates from Maharashtra till date, of which only two are women - Poonam Mahajan from Mumbai North Central and Heena Gavit from Nandurbar.
The Shiv Sena too has announced just one woman candidate of the 20 it has fielded for the upcoming elections. The only lady candidate who bagged it is sitting MP Bhavana Gawli from Yavatmal-Washim constituency.
Parties claim the few number of women candidates fielded does not reflect their commitment to women's issues. Nawab Malik, NCP spokesperson, said, "We have tried our best to filed women candidates into the electoral fray. We also support the women's reservation bill, which seeks adequate representation of women in politics. They are also neglected by many parties but we believe in giving proper participation to them." The NCP has fielded three women candidates -- sitting MP from Baramati, Supriya Sule, Bharti Pawar from Dindori and Navneet Rana from Amravati - of a total of 21 candidates.
The highest number of women candidates (17%) has been fielded by Aam Aadmi Party, which has eight women candidates of the 46 it has fielded. The percentage of women candidates other parties have fielded stands at around 10%. The eight candidates from AAP comprise Anjali Damania from Nagpur, Meera Sanyal from Mumbai South, Medha Patkar from Mumbai North East, Deepali Sayed from Ahmadnagar, Pratibha Shinde from Raver, Savita Shinde from Madha, Salma Kulkarni from Parbani, Sameena Khan from Sangli.
Meanwhile, AAP is also planning to field more women candidates in assembly polls. Preeti Sharma Menon, Secretary, AAP, Maharashtra, said, "We wanted to give almost 50% of our tickets to women, which comprise almost half of our population. We were left with very less time to pick best candidates from the state for the elections so we could achieve only 18%. However, in the assembly elections, we will accommodate a greater chunk of seats for women."
Even the Shiv Sena promises to field more in the assembly elections. The party's spokesperson Subhash Desai said, "We could not include more women candidates this time, but Gawli is a very strong and talented woman leader. However, we will try to include more women power during the state assembly elections".
The Inter-Parliamentary Union and UN Women recently ranked India 73{+r}{+d} of 188 countries on women's participation in politics. It claimed that only 10% of ministerial and parliamentary posts in India were occupied by women. However, in Maharashtra, the figures are more worrisome compared to the national average.
GENDER BENDER
Party TG W %
AAP468 17.3
NCP213 14.2
BJP242 8.3
Shiv Sena201 5
Congress261 3.8
(TG: Tickets given. W: Women candidates)