Congress’ ‘nari shakti’ contrast: 40% women candidates in UP, below 10% in other poll-bound states

Of the 255 candidates announced by the Congress in Uttar Pradesh, 105 candidates or 40.4 per cent are women.

The ambit of Congress’s much-hyped ‘Ladki hun, lad sakti hun’ slogan aimed at women empowerment seems to be confined to Uttar Pradesh alone. While the party has fielded 40 per cent women candidates in UP as Priyanka Gandhi had promised, the proportion of women candidates in the Congress’s list released so far for Punjab, Goa, Uttarakhand and Manipur has been less than 10 per cent!

Of the 255 candidates announced by the Congress in UP, 105 candidates or 40.4 per cent are women. However, there is a stark difference in women nomination in other poll-bound states. The proportion of women candidates is 9.2 per cent in Punjab, 7.5 per cent in Manipur, 6.3 per cent in Uttarakhand and 5.6 per cent in Goa.

So far, the BJP has named 195 candidates for UP, of which 26 are women. Samajwadi Party has released the names of 159 candidates that include 11 women.

Women candidates in 2017 UP polls