UP polls: Race to win women’s support begins

TMC had given over 40% tickets to women in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, while the Congress promise is exclusively for the forthcoming high-stakes assembly polls in Uttar Pradesh, where the party is desperately trying to recuperate from its dismal health.

Though the Congress has given 11 of the 21 chief ministers to UP, its political exile started at the end of 1989. Narain Dutt Tiwari was the last Congress chief minister to rule the state from June 1988 to December 1989.

Others, including the ruling Bhartiya Janata Party, which had received the overwhelming support of women in the 2017 assembly polls, described Priyanka Gandhi Vadra’s announcement as a mere poll gimmick, reminding her of her party’s ill health, while the Samajwadi Party reiterated its oft-repeated contention that winnability is a decisive factor in the selection of tickets.

The Congress leader, however, insisted that her party’s decision was aimed at making women full-fledged partners in power, an ambitious process that her late father Rajiv Gandhi had initiated, but was finally executed by the late Congress Prime Minister PV Narasimha Rao, amending the Constitution and granting 33% quota to women in panchayats. It became a national movement that stirred women’s participation in the electoral process of the country, eventually compelling all political parties to put women’s issues on their agenda — both in the manifestoes as well as in the budgets of the states they ruled.

Notwithstanding initial hiccups, women started asserting themselves in panchayats, which also became a training ground for budding politicians. However, experts feel that illiteracy still remains a major drawback.

Rakesh Chandra, professor of philosophy at Lucknow University, recently participated in the training programme of women pradhans in the state capital. While taking pride in the entry of more than 33% of women in panchayats, he was shocked to see majority of them, as young as 20 years, depending on their male family members to hold a pen. Yet some of them, despite illiteracy, have done wonders in their villages.

As women started changing the patriarchal mindset, the demand for 33% quota in Parliament and the state legislatures was raised. Despite protests and demonstrations by women politicians cutting across party lines, the women’s reservation bill has remained pending for over two decades.

A senior Congress leader, while applauding Priyanka for carrying forward the campaign for more power to women, admitted that while they are attracting eyeballs, but may not get enough votes to win seats. “Where are the winnable candidates in the party?” she queried.

Even academic Rakesh Chandra felt Priyanka should have made the announcement much ahead of the elections.

The non-Congress parties have always toed a single line against quota for women – winnability is a major factor in selection of tickets. A few women who earlier managed to get tickets were widows, wives or daughters of political hotshots.

Obviously, in a state where muscle and money power play a decisive role in electoral politics, women from an apolitical background are reluctant, though women leaders carrying revolvers in the electoral arena is no more a rare sight.

A former Congress MP, when once spotted with a revolver tucked near her waist, while demurely covering her head with her chiffon saree, had quipped, “I have to protect myself also.” She was once brutally attacked by her opponents in the field.

The Institute of Women’s Studies at Lucknow University had conducted a study on women’s political participation in UP soon after 2004 Lok Sabha elections and observed, “Elections are largely conducted by men and with men’s support. Electoral expediency requires women participants to compromise to survive in the man’s world of politics. Thus, the nature of electoral politics in India marginalises women and women’s issues from the political agenda.”

UP has a dismal record of women in power. Only two out of 21 chief ministers of the state were women — Sucheta Kriplani from 1963-67 and Mayawati’s four stints (three truncated ones between 1995 and August 2003 and one full term from May 2007 to March 2012). The state has had women governors, but women never graced the chair of the speaker of the Vidhan Sabha or the Leader of Opposition.

Thus, while not many doubt Priyanka Gandhi’s intentions, they certainly find the announcement a stretch as her party’s health is dismal and a majority of her cadre has moved to other political parties over the years.

“How does it matter whether you field a woman or a man when you are contesting the seat to lose it?”, said a frustrated Congress leader.

However, the scenario has changed for good since 1993 with women grabbing power and positions. But poll tickets still remain a dream. Every party has a women’s wing, but it has little say in the distribution of tickets. Their job is to mobilise votes.

A functionary of the BJP’s women’s wing Chetna Pandey said, “Like most, I will feel elated if I get to contest the 2022 elections. But let me make it clear that unlike some parties which make announcements for poll purpose, in the BJP women empowerment is a policy we practise on a daily basis. A record number of women ministers, lawmakers and leaders across the country are evidence of our thought.”

The fact is in the current scenario, all parties recognise the need to win women votes, but in “make or mar elections” are unwilling to take the risk of fielding them in large numbers till the candidates have caste or family support.

Union minister Anupriya Patel rose in the echelons of power as she inherited the political ground her father Sone Lal Patel had nurtured. But yet another woman leader, on condition of anonymity, shared her pain of relentlessly struggling for tickets, chasing leaders for over two decades, before deciding to quit politics.

A former functionary of BJP’s women’s wing said, “The Congress announcement would definitely spur all parties to think about women more while distributing tickets and this is something we must welcome.”

An SP leader insisted that their leader Mulayam Singh Yadav, while opposing 33% quota for women, had supported reservations for them at the party level. Even in 2017, the party had fielded about 43 women candidates, much more than the Congress and the BSP. Only one could win.

A look at the election data also reveals that 1993 proved to be a major milestone as it raised their political ambitions as well as participation.

The voting percentage of women rose from 46.75% in 1989 to 57.13% in 1993. It shot up to 63.31%, marginally higher than male voting, in 2017. Similarly, data also dispels the notion that women don’t win elections — their winning percentage has gone up from 1.41% in 1967 to 10.42% in 2017.

In the 2017 assembly polls, both the BJP and the SP, which ridiculed Priyanka Gandhi’s announcement as a “stunt”, had fielded 46 and 43 women candidates out of which 35 and one won respectively. M On the other hand, the Congress had fielded 12 and BSP 21 — two each were elected.

Over 100 seats to women thus remain a far cry.

However, realising the might of women’s electoral power, all political parties have started picking up women issues to appease them – Swachh Bharat Abhiyan, Beti Padhao, Beti Bachao, free bus travel, subsidised cooking cylinders, alcohol ban, bicycles to school girls et el. And the parties have accrued dividends. Electoral victories of Nitish Kumar’s JD (U) in Bihar, AAP in New Delhi, TMC in West Bengal and BJP in UP have been attributed to women’s support.

The Lucknow University study had also revealed an interesting facet of the issue. The study found, “Many women felt that electoral politics, at times, limited the kind of support women politicians would like to extend to members of their own sex, since they realise that they cannot win elections on women’s issues alone. Most of them are still hesitant to identify themselves with women’s issues, claiming that women form only one section of their constituency and till recently not the determining section.”

Chandra says the fact remains Rajiv Gandhi has done more than Indira Gandhi. For that matter, even the Mayawati-led BSP has not promoted women.

Thus, by initiating women’s agenda, Priyanka Gandhi has only mounted pressure on other parties to not only hunt for winnable women candidates, but also include more women issues in their poll agenda. She is trying to cultivate a vote bank, which forms about 50% of the population. But it remains divided into caste and communities. Their rising aspirations can sway them enough to tilt the balance in the coming years.

But while it may help political parties like the BJP, the SP, the BSP, with sound organisation and a stable vote bank, the Congress may have to first put its house in order to even attract them.

It appears the race to win women’s support has begun as now their own aspiration are increasingly swaying their votes more than the say of their families.

Commenting on the influence of social media on both the educated and uneducated sectors, Chandra says, “One thing is sure after West Bengal. Women don’t like anyone making unsavoury comments on any woman.”

The grapevine indicates more tickets in the offing for them.