MISERABLE: Highest turnout with 49% women voters, BUT only 'ONE FEMALE' winner in Himachal assembly election- CHECK

The results of Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh assembly elections were declared on Thursday. Congress holds 40 seats out of 68 assembly seats in Himachal. BJP won in 25. Independent candidates won 3 seats. Only one woman candidate has won out of 68 assembly constituencies in Himachal Pradesh. Reena Kashyap. She won on a BJP ticket, the party that lost power this time. Not a single woman candidate from the Congress won in Himachal. 

The BJP fielded six women candidates in the Himachal elections. Congress had five women candidates, AAP three. But among them, only Reena won the election on a BJP ticket. Reena won the Pachhad assembly constituency. She also won the 2021 Himachal by-election from that centre. However, the same trend was seen in the previous assembly elections as well. In some elections, two, and in some elections, three women candidates won. Only four women candidates managed to win the 2017 assembly elections. But this year's condition is the most deplorable. But at present about 49 percent of the total voters in the state are women. The question is why the women candidates in Himachal are so miserable?

Also Read: Himachal Assembly Election Results 2022: Full list of winners, seat-wise winning candidates of AAP, BJP, Congress

The heavyweight women candidates who lost the election are four-time MLA and minister Sarveen Chowdhury from Shahpur in Kangra, veteran Congress leader and six-time MLA from Dalhousie Asha Kumari, Indore BJP MLA Rita Dhiman, veteran Congress leader Kaul Singh's daughter Champa Thakur (Mandi). Interestingly, since the 1998 elections, the turnout rate of women voters in Himachal has been higher than that of men. There was no exception to this rule in the last five elections. In 1998, the voter turnout for female and male voters was 72.2 and 71.23 percent. In 2003 it was 75.92 and 73.14 percent, in 2007 it was 74.10 and 68.36 percent. In 2012, it was 76.20 and 69.39 percent. In 2017, it was 77.98 and 70.58 percent.

It was no different in the recently concluded elections. In the 2022 elections, female and male voting rates were 76.8 and 72.4 percent respectively. To encourage women voters ahead of the elections, both the Congress and the BJP raised demands for women's empowerment. But no party fielded more women candidates. Despite long-standing demands for women's empowerment in Himachal, only 43 women legislators have been elected in the fifteen assembly elections since 1967 among the major political parties.