Voters have elected 12 women to the Karnataka Assembly polls, making this the highest tally since 1962, when 18 women were elected as MLAs.
Of the women who won this time, there were five candidates each from the Congress and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), and one from the Janata Dal (Secular) and one Independent. As many as 185 women contested in this election.
The two national parties, the BJP and Congress, had fielded 12 and 11 women candidates, respectively, in the 224 constituencies in this election. In 2018, the voters elected just 7 women, or 3.1 per cent of the 219 women contestants, to the state Assembly.
The state has consistently failed to elect more than 10 women MLAs since 1989, despite an increase in the number of women contestants. Back in 1957, the first election to the Assembly of Mysore after the linguistic reorganisation of the state, 13 of the 24 contesting women made it to the Assembly. In 1962, 18 women made it to the state Assembly of the 30 who were in the fray.
Among the winning Congress candidates were Laxmi Hebbalkar from Belgaum Rural, Soumya Reddy from Jayanagar, Roopa Kala M from Kolar Gold Fields, Nayana Motamma from Mudigere, and Kaneez Fathima from Gulbarga Uttar.
Manjula S from Mahadevapura, Shashikala Jolle from Nippani, Sharada Puryanaik from Shivamogga Rural, Bhagirathi Murulya from Sullia, and Jyothi Ganesh from Tumkur City won on a BJP ticket.
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Ahead of the state polls, Congress’ Hebbalkar had demanded that the party consider choosing a woman as the chief minister. This was perhaps a reflection of the fact that women electors outnumbered men in exactly half the seats in the Assembly, 112 out of 224.
