Women’s representation in Kerala Assembly remains low

Thiruvananthapuram: The number of women getting elected to Kerala Assembly remains more or less static though women contesting the elections have been going up since 2001. Only eight women will be swearing-in as members when the 14^th Kerala Assembly begins its first session on June 2.

In the 13^th Assembly, their number was just seven. The highest number of women was elected to the Assembly in 1996. Even then, it was only 13 members despite the high literacy and better status of women in the State.

In the 2001 elections, 52 women had contested the elections. Their number rose to 70 in 2006 and 83 in 2011. This year 108 women contested the Assembly elections. This meant a hundred losers, and more than 60 of them failed to get even one per cent of the votes.

However, the performance winning candidates was often better than that of many men, with several of them getting more than 50 per cent of the votes in the past. In 2001, half of the eight women who won the Assembly elections had bagged more than 50 per cent of the votes. In 2006, five of the seven women elected to the House won more than 50 per cent of the votes. In 2011, three of the seven winners had more than 50 per cent votes. However, this year only two— P. Aiysha Potti and J. Mercy Kutty Amma (both CPI-M), could win more than 50 per cent votes.  P. K. Jayalekshmi, who was elected with more than 50 per cent votes in 2011 and became a minister in the Oommen Chandy Government, was defeated in this year’s election.

K. R. Gouri holds the record as the longest serving woman member of the Assembly, having been elected to the Assembly 12 times. (Only one man, K. M. Mani, has beaten her record.) She served a total of 5544 days as member of Kerala Assembly and 1130 days as member of its predecessor, the Travancore-Cochin Assembly.

She has often won around 50 per cent of the votes. However, she was defeated in the elections to the Assembly in 2006 and 2011. Yet, none of the other women legislators have shown her perseverance. Many got defeated after the first or second term or could not get a ticket again.

Bhargavi Thankappan (CPI), who rose to become the Deputy Speaker, was the one to come closest to Ms. Gouri.  Mrs. Thankappan was the only woman member elected to the fifth Kerala Assembly and went on to win four more elections.  

One woman member of Seventh Kerala Legislative Assembly (KLA) was elected in a by-election in 1986