Women, SC/ST reservation seen narrowly

The reservation for women and SC/ST is always seen narrowly and this Urban Local Body (ULB) election is no exception. Apart from reserved wards, none of the political parties have provided promising number of tickets for women and SC/ST in general wards.

Congress has provided two tickets for schedule castes and one for women in general constituency. Dr Savitha is contesting from ward number 6, whereas Siddaraju and Badal Nanjundaswamy who belong to SC are contesting from ward number 17 and 20 respectively. While, BJP has provided ticket for one women candidate Latha Mohan (ward number 58), and JD(S) has given one ticket for SC candidate (Suresh) from Ward No 17.

When contacted some of the political leaders to ask about women reservation, the answer was strange. Many of them think giving 33 per cent reservation to women is more than the required. The major political parties think that the chances of women winning against male candidates are less. While some men do want to give up the equal opportunity for the women and are not ready to share their power.

Some think women wont be equal contender to men in political line and have the mindset that women will be losing candidate. There are even instances where some males were scared of sharing power with women.

Sociologist Prof Indira says: “political power is in the hands of men from several decades and majority of them want to enjoy as long as possible. Moreover corruption has become part of politics. Hence, they are not ready to accept the principle of providing the reservation for women in general wards as they do want to redistribute their power. Even we can see in America so far a women has not been provided an opportunity to become President. This is nothing but 'Tokenism'. A lot of things have to change for the woman to really exercise her power."

Dalit Leader Purushotham said as elections were suddenly announced he could not look into the issue. “I will definitely fight for schedule caste rights and ensure from next election schedule caste people get ticket in general constituency.”

Statistics 

Congress : 65 wards – 22 women

JD(S) : 64 wards – 22 women

BJP : 64 wards - 21 women

KJP : 60 wards – 20 women

BSR Congress : 40 wards – 12 women

Independent Candidates: 210 – 40 women

In all, 433 candidates are contesting in election in which 137 are women.