Though the female voters outnumbered the turnout of male voters in Himachal Pradesh in the 2022 assembly elections held on November 12, only one out of 24 women candidates, who were in the fray was elected to the Vidhan Sabha this year.
The only woman MLA who will be the part of the newly-elected 68-member Himachal Pradesh Assembly is BJP’s Reena Kashyap from the Pachhad segment of the Sirmaur district. This is the lowest in the past 30 years.
Reena Kashyap emerged winner by defeating Congress’s Dayal Pyari by a margin of 3,857 votes in the assembly polls, the results of which were declared on December 8.
A total of 24 women candidates were in the fray out of a total of 412 nominees for the polls. Out of these, the BJP, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), and Congress had fielded six, five, and three women candidates, respectively.
However, Reena Kashyap was the only woman candidate to win the election. Kashyap, who had won Pachhad (SC) assembly by-poll in 2021, managed to retain her seat this time too.
In 2017, a total of four women candidates managed to win the Vidhan Sabha elections. Last, it was in 1977 when the state had only one woman MLA. In the 1998 assembly polls, eight women were elected as a legislator to the state assembly.
Prominent women candidates who lost the November 12 elections included senior Congress leader and six-time MLA from Dalhousie, Asha Kumari who was a contender for chief minister’s post and was defeated by BJP’s DK Thakur; Social Justice and Empowerment Minister and four-time MLA from Shahpur in Kangra, Sarveen Chaudhary who lost to Congress’ Kewal Singh Pathania; BJP MLA from Indora Rita Dhiman; Champa Thakur, daughter of veteran Congress minister Kaul Singh’s, got defeated from Mandi.
According to the election commission data, Himachal Pradesh witnessed a record 75.6 percent voter turnout for the Assembly elections on November 12. While 76.8 percent of women voted against 72.4 percent of men this time. The women voters surpassed male voters by 82,301.
Himachal has total of 55,92,828 electors, including 28,54,945 men and 27,37,845 women, which is 48.95 percent of the total voters in the state.
Interestingly, the polling percentage of women has outnumbered men in assembly elections in the last two decades. The polling percentage of women and men electors was 72.2 and 71.23 percent in 1998, 75.92 and 73.14 percent in 2003, 74.10 and 68.36 percent in 2007, 76.20 and 69.39 percent in 2012, and 77.98 and 70.58 percent in 2017, ECI data said.
Meanwhile, the Congress on Thursday got an absolute majority in the Himachal Pradesh Assembly elections, winning 40 seats – six over than the halfway mark of 34 in the 68-member House, while the outgoing BJP was reduced to 25 and independents took three seats.
