TUMAKURU: It will be women power on show at the December 10 Legislative Council elections to 25 seats as voters, who are members of local bodies, are more women than men.The final voter list, as of November 23, 2021, has 51,854 women members against 47,205 men of the total electorate of 99,062. The remaining three are “others”, or transgenders. Women constitute 52.34 per cent of the electorate as compared to 47.65 per cent men, which is a difference of 4.69 percent.
The gram panchayat elections are fought with 50 per cent of seats reserved for women as per a government passed in 2015. Apart from this, women have also won 2.65 per cent more seats from other categories.
“Karnataka is among 20 states in the country to implement 50 per cent reservation for women, which was 33 per cent till 2010. Bihar was the first to amend the Gram Swaraj and Panchayat Raj Act, 1993,” said Kadashettyhalli Sathish, a two-time gram Panchayat member in Gubbi taluk of Tumakuru district and general secretary of Karnataka Panchayat Raj Parishat.
“Women members understand problems of the people at the grassroots level. They will be choosy in electing MLCs,” he said.Former Prime Minister and JDS patriarch HD Deve Gowda said, “When I was the chief minister in 1994, we implemented reservation for OBCs in local bodies and also pushed for 33 per cent quota for women in the Assembly and Lok Sabha.”
Twenty local bodies in Bengaluru Urban have 1,077 women members as against 907 men. In Belagavi’s dual seat, of the total electorate of 8,875, 4,646 are women and 4,229 men.