Ten major women politicians in the fray in 2019 Lok Sabha elections

The elections started on April 11 and continue till May 19. The counting will be held on May 23. Nearly 90 crore voters will be eligible to vote for 543 Lok Sabha constituencies across the country.

(Photo by Biju BORO / AFP)

NEW DELHI: With states like Arunachal Pradesh reporting that the number of women contestants in Arunachal Pradesh has gone up to 11 in the current election for the 60-member assembly, against seven in the 2014 polls and parties like BJD fielding women candidates in 33 per cent seats for the coming Lok Sabha elections in Odisha, it would be interesting to see if parties have resorted to tokenism when it came to distribution of tickets to women in the general election 2019.

Here are some major women politicians in the fray in 2019 Lok Sabha elections

1. PDP president Mehbooba Mufti will be the party candidate from Anantnag Lok Sabha constituency. The party has decided not to field any candidates for Jammu and Udhampur seats in a bid to prevent the division of "secular votes". Mehbooba Mufti who had been India's second Muslim woman chief minister had previously represented Anantnag and was elected to the Lok Sabha from Anantnag seat in 2004 and 2014.

 

2. Bollywood actor Urmila Matondkar is the Congress' Lok Sabha candidate from Mumbai North constituency. Matondkar is pitted against BJP MP Gopal Shetty from the Mumbai North constituency, which goes to poll on April 29. After Matondkar had said she felt the need to join the Congress party as the freedom to express was under attack in the country and there are numerous examples in this regard in the last five years.

 

3. Fighting for the Mathura Lok Sabha seat, the sitting MP and film actor Hema Malini will represent BJP. Before being elected as Mathura MP in 2014, Hema Malini was a Rajya Sabha MP twice, first from 2003 to 2009 and then from 2011 to 2012. She had defeated the RLD's sitting MP Jayant Chaudhary in the 2014 Lok Sabha polls by a huge margin of 3,30,743 votes. She had been a member of various parliamentary standing committees, including those for the External Affairs Ministry, Transport, Tourism, Culture, Women Empowerment, Information and Broadcasting.

 

4. Sonia Gandhi, 72, had filed her nomination from Rae Bareli for the Lok Sabha election. Sonia Gandhi has earlier won the seat in 2004, 2006 bypolls, 2009 and 2014. Since 1957, the Congress has lost this seat only three times in 1977, 1996 and 1998. In 2014, the constituency recorded a poll percentage of 51.73 per cent, with Sonia Gandhi getting 5,26,434 votes.

 

5. Union minister and BJP candidate from Amethi Lok Sabha seat Smriti Irani in the Lok Sabha election 2019. She lost the 2014 election by over a lakh votes, but the shrunken margin of victory for Gandhi boosted the Bharatiya Janata Party's hopes in the constituency. Amethi figures in the fifth phase of the seven-phased general elections and voting there will be held on May 6.

 

6. Wife of Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) chief Sukhbir Singh Badal, the Akali Dal is likely to shift Harsimrat Kaur Badal to the Ferozepur parliamentary seat for the Lok Sabha polls. Harsimrat Kaur Badal had first won from Bathinda in 2009 when she defeated Raninder Singh, son of chief minister Amarinder Singh by 1.20 lakh votes. In 2014, she defeated Manpreet Badal, estranged cousin of Sukhbir Badal, by over 19,000 votes. Despite speculation that Harsimrat Kaur Badal may be fielded from Ferozepur, she has been meeting party workers in villages falling in Bathinda parliamentary seat.

 

7. Union minister Maneka Gandhi will contest from Sultanpur on BJP ticket. In 2014, she won Pilibhit (Lok Sabha constituency and represent as Member of Lok Sabha on a Bharatiya Janata Party ticket.

 

8. For the Lok Sabah election, Samajwadi Party candidate and sitting MP Dimple Yadav filed her nomination papers for the Kannauj Lok Sabha seat. Dimple Yadav, a two-time lawmaker from Kannauj, has represented the Lok Sabha seat since 2012 when it was vacated by her husband after he became the chief minister.

 

9. Former Samajwadi Party MP and actor Jaya Prada recently joined the BJP. Jaya Prada has earlier represented Rampur MP twice in the Lok Sabha. The two-term Lok Sabha member from the SP, she is a close associate of Rajya Sabha member Amar Singh, who was expelled from the regional party and has since come close to Hindutva fountainhead Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh. With Jaya Prada joining the BJP, the party's "star power" will also be boosted as it already has the likes of Hema Malini and Paresh Rawal in its ranks.

 

10. Former Mumbai MP Priya Dutt filed her name for the general elections 2019. Priya Dutt is Congress candidate nominated from the Mumbai North-Central Lok Sabha constituency, from where she was elected in 2004 and 2009. In 2014, she was defeated by Poonam Mahajan of the BJP by a margin of around 1.86 lakh votes.