India votes in the 6th phase of #LokSabhaElections2019 on 12th May.
With 6 constituencies in the fray, Bihar has a very interesting history of women’s representation. We look at the data behind the history.
#Thread #WomensRepresentation
Tarakeswari Sinha and Sushama Sen were the first women MPs to be elected from Bihar to the 1st Lok Sabha in 1952.
In the early years, percentage of women contestants who won elections was fairly high.
71% in 1957
75% in 1962 of women contestants went on to become MPs in Bihar.
Between 1967 and 1980, the percentage of women getting elected saw a steady decline, while the number of women contestants increased marginally.
In 1967, only 33% women who contested won.
In 1977, no woman was elected to Lok Sabha from Bihar.
In the 80s, the percentage of women contestants in Bihar who won fluctuated sharply.
In 1980, 26% contestants won,
in 1984 it shot to 60%
in 1989 it declined drastically to 12%.
The 90s were interesting, they saw an upsurge of women candidates in Bihar.
Women contesting for Lok Sabha doubled.
in 1991 from 17 (1989) to 35
and in 1996 to 41.
However, only 9% and 7% of the women contesting won the elections.
2 consecutive election years in Bihar -1998 and 1999
saw women candidates decline by half from the previous election - 22 and 20.
The number of women candidates in Bihar between 2004 and 2009
increased 4 times - 12 to 46.
However, in the same period the percentage of women who won declined sharply from
25% to 9%.
In 2014, only 6% of women who contested won - the lowest in Bihar’s history after 1977 where not a single woman had been elected an MP.
In 1984, 20% of MPs elected from Bihar were women - the highest in Bihar’s history.
Since then, women MPs have ranged from 5% in 1989 to 11% in 1999.
The last Lok Sabha (2014-19) had 8% women MPs from Bihar, down from 10% in 2009.
#WomensRepresentation #WomenInPolitics #Bihar
Source: Data compiled from ECI
Let's take a look at the history of women members of parliament elected from Bihar between 1957-2014.
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