Thread by @BehanBox

As Kerala votes in the #LokSabhaElections2019 tomorrow, we take a look at the history of women's representation from Kerala in the lower house of the Parliament. Thread.

Kerala has had very low representation of women in the Lok Sabha, despite scoring high on many gender indices. Kerala also has more female voters than male.
Between 1951 and 2019, only 8 women have become MPs from Kerala.

The number of women contesting has increased from 1 to 27 in 68 years.
Kerala has 20 seats in the Lok Sabha. 6 of the 16 Lok Sabha tenures did not have any women MPs from Kerala.
These were in 1957, 1962, 1977, 1984, 1996 and 2009.

Only twice in 68 years, were a maximum of 2 women elected. In 1991, Savithri Lakshmanan (INC) and Suseela Gopalan (CPM) and in 2004 P Satheedevi (CPM) and CS Sujatha.

Annie Mascarene was the first woman MP and the only woman elected from Trivandrum (then Travancore and Cochin state) in 1951.
A woman with a remarkable career, she went on to represent the state in the Constituent Assembly. Read more about her here:
indianexpress.com/article/gender…

Suseela Gopalan of CPM had been an MP 3 times in 1967, 1980 and 1991. An active student leader and trade Unionist, she served as the All India VP of the Centre of Indian Trade Unions (CITU).

As an MP, Suseela Gopalan was the member of the joint Parliamentary committee to examine the working of Dowry Prohibition Act of 1961 and later in the enactment of the anti-dowry law.

Source: frontline.thehindu.com/static/html/fl…

AK Premajam and Savithri Lakshmanan have served as MPs for 2 terms.
In 2014, Kerala had a lone woman MP- P.K. Sreemathi.
In these elections 2 women each have been fielded from the Left Democratic Front and United Democratic front and BJP.

Bhargavi Thankappan, the first and only Dalit woman MP, was elected from Adoor Lok Sabha Constituency in 1971. She was elected to Kerala Legislative Assembly 5 times from 1977-2001.
She also served as a Deputy Speaker of Kerala Legislative Assembly from 1987-1991

Remya Haridas is contesting on Congress ticket from Alathur, Kerala in#LokSabhaElections2019
If manages to win, she will be second Dalit woman MP in the political history of Kerala.