From CK Nayak
Women representation in Assemblies
NEW DELHI: With as many as four women MLAs and three of them holding Cabinet posts in the 60-member Assembly, Meghalaya tops the states in giving representation to the fairer sex both in the House and in the ministry.
This is in radical contrast to Delhi which has six women MLAs in the 70-member House but none of them making to it the six-member ministry led by AAP supremo Arvind Kejariwal. Kejariwal created history and stunned the rest of the country by trouncing BJP and vanquishing hundred-year-old party Congress.
It is an irony that Delhi is not the only states where there are no women in the ministry. There are seven other states without any women minister and Nagaland, Mizoram and Puducherry even do not have women MLA, according to Bhanupriya Rao, an RTI activist.
Besides Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, Punjab and Telegana have women MLAs varying from 10 to 12 per cent but not a single lady minister. Barring Telengana which was newly create the rest had women Chief Ministers and Shilela Dixit even had a record hat-trick term as Congress Chief Minister.
In contrast Goa ruled by BJP-led alliance and Kerala ruled by Congress-led alliance has only one woman MLA each but both of them have been made ministers.
With all State Assemblies put together, 360 of the country’s 4,120 MLAs – or nine per cent – are women. However, just 39 of the 568 Ministers in State governments, or less than seven per cent, are women. Fewer still are Cabinet Ministers.
Some States make a special effort to get women into ministerial positions, the data shows. Meghalaya, ruled by the Congress-led Meghalaya United Alliance, has just four women MLAs, but three of them were made Ministers. They are Roshan Warjri, Deborah Marak and Ampareen Lyngdoh.
What portfolios do women who are made Ministers get? Just three women have been handed the Home Ministry – BJP’s Anandiben Patel in Gujarat, Trinamool Congress’s Mamata Banerjee in West Bengal and Congress’s Roshan Wajri in Meghalaya.
Two of these three women leaders are Chief Ministers of their State. Only two women leaders in the country handle the Finance Ministry – BJP’s Vasundhara Raje, who is also the Chief Minister of Rajasthan, and the Congress’ Indira Hridayesh in Uttarakhand.
Vasundara Raje Chief Minister of Rajasthan and Indira Hrdidyaesh of Uttarakhand hold next important portfolio Finance. The Women and Child Development Ministry and Social Welfare are the most common portfolios given to women Ministers. Deborah Marak holds Social Welfare portfolio, besides others.
