India

Sharda Devi, the first woman state president of the ruling BJP in Manipur, wants the party to put up a sizeable number of women candidates for the Assembly elections

“There is 33 per cent reservation for women in local bodies and panchayats. A similar principle should be followed while allotting tickets to aspirants for the Assembly election. However, women candidates must be competent,” Sharda Devi said over the phone from Imphal.

An actress jailed for protesting Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s controversial citizenship law, the mother of a rape survivor, and a beauty pageant winner. These are the women leading India’s once-dominant Congress party as it seeks to reinvent itself in a hotly contested state election.

Several male aspirants of different political parties, who aimed to contest for the mayor’s post of Berhampur Municipal Corporation (BeMC) in the upcoming election of the civic body, were disappointed as the state government on Wednesday proposed to reserve the prestigious post for women.

The Congress party on Saturday released its first list of 86 candidates in Punjab. Out of the total, Congress has decided to field only nine women candidates in the upcoming polls.

Ahead of the upcoming Punjab assembly elections, Congress on Saturday issued its first list of candidates on 86 seats. The list includes nine women candidates, four former ministers and two AAP rebels.

Congress' Uttar Pradesh in-charge and general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra has been leading the charge in the state. She has made several populist announcements and started direct interactions with women after not left with any strong base in the politics of caste and community.

The Election Commission, on Saturday, mandated that one polling station in each constituency should be managed by women in the upcoming Assembly Elections. This is introduced in a bid to facilitate increased participation of women in the election process.

The announcement was a part of the all-important press conference held by Chief Election Commissioner Sushil Chandra where he asked the political parties to hold virtual rallies, keeping in mind the rapid surge of COVID-19 cases in the country.

The dawn of 2022 in Uttar Pradesh, apart from witnessing a fiercely fought battle in the Assembly elections, will also decide the political fate of five women politicians.

These women, directly or indirectly, are playing a key role in the Assembly elections for their respective parties, and the poll outcome will prove crucial for them.

A game of political one-upmanship is being witnessed among the major political parties ever since Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra promised 40% party tickets to women candidates and made some populist announcements for them ahead of the 2022 Uttar Pradesh assembly elections.