Nominate more women in polls: Ansari

He noted that only 146 women were fielded in 2014 general elections by national parties, which was 9.17 per cent of the total 1,591 candidates and regretted that the gender profile in legislatures and Parliamentary panels on important issues remained woefully unbalanced. 

“Giving women constitutional rights to suffrage is one thing but its tangible impact in raising women’s power and influence in polity and society is an altogether different matter,” Ansari said while addressing a two-day maiden National Conference of Women Legislators here. 

The Vice-President said despite 47 per cent of the total voters being women during the last Lok Sabha elections, patriarchy and social norms have hindered its full reflection in positions of power.

He said increase of women representation at panchayat and local bodies level to 43 per cent has not led to their commensurate increase in legislatures both at the Centre and in states as gender profile in the Parliament remains “woefully unbalanced” with 12 per cent of the total members being women. “...all political parties need to extend their support to ensure that the Constitutional Amendment Bill to provide for 33 per cent reservation to women in the Lok Sabha and state Legislative Assemblies is not delayed further. Until then, at least they need to expand their pool of women candidates,” Ansari said. 

He said said out of a total of 1,591 candidates fielded by the six national parties, only 146 constituting 9.17 per cent were women. “This is certainly not very encouraging,” he said. 

The Vice-President also felt that most women legislators are usually nominated only in parliamentary committees dealing with issues related to women and stressed both the lawmakers and the party leaderships need to work so that they can have a greater say in all matters. 

“This also seems to be sustained by data on their membership of parliamentary committees though the responsibility for this state of affairs is to be shared by party leaderships who, in the final analysis, do the nominations,” he said as he gave data on women members on various committees of the Parliament.