CHENNAI: Tamil Nadu is known as one of the progressive states in the country. But when it comes to giving political space to women, it still fares poorly.In all, only five women figure in the lists of candidates released by the two major alliances (led by the DMK and the AIADMK) for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections for Tamil Nadu and Puducherry. This comes to just around 6 per cent (five out of 80 candidates). This is despite the fact that female voters are around six lakh more than male voters. The total number of female voters in TN is 2,98,60765 as against 2,92,56,960 male voters.
The Election Commission records show that since Independence, only 18 women have been elected to the Lok Sabha from Tamil Nadu. Some of them have won more than once and the total number of women elected to the Lok Sabha from the state is just 26. One of them, the late Congress leader Maragatham Chandrasekhar, recorded the highest number of victories in the Lok Sabha as she had won five elections.
Second to her was the late Parvathi Krishnan of the CPI, who was elected from Coimbatore three times.
Gone are the days when there were such women leaders who were repeatedly fielded by parties in polls. Since 1996, in two of the Lok Sabha polls, no women were elected from Tamil Nadu. In one poll, only one woman was elected. The maximum number of women Lok Sabha members from Tamil Nadu was recorded in 2004 and 2014. In these two elections each, four women were elected to the Lok Sabha – even this is just four per cent of the total strength.
Raveenthran Duraisamy, a political analyst, said, “Political leaders think women candidates cannot win elections unless they have extraordinary talent. Winnability of the candidate is in their mind when selecting candidates.” He said that the Naam Tamilar Katchi was far better than other parties in that it has fielded 20 women candidates out of the total 40 seats in this election and said such gestures must be welcomed.
Former MLA and CPM leader K Balabharathi said, “The cumulative fear of the male society over the emergence of women leaders is what is preventing them (leaders of parties) from fielding women candidates. Only the 33% reservation for women would get them their due representation in Parliament and State Assemblies.”