Women in Kerala get raw deal in seat allocation

Despite Kerala's image as a progressive society and having a fair track record for gender equity, the state has so far sent only seven women to the Lok Sabha.
    
This time too, major parties have fielded only five women candidates -- two of them by the Communist Party of India-Marxist and one each by the Congress, Bharatiya Janata Party and Bahujan Samaj Party.
    
The poor representation of women is regardless of the fact that female voters outnumber men by 8.56 lakh in the
state.
    
Women candidates who have entered the fray this time are CPI-M's sitting MP from Vatakara, P Sathidevi, firebrand Democratic Youth Federation of India- a student wing of CPI-M - activist Sindhu from Ernakulam, Shahida Kamal of the Congress from Kasaragod, the Bharatiya Janata Party's Rema Raghunandan from Thrissur and Bahujan Samaj Party's Madhavi from Kasaragod constituency.
    
Cutting across political lines, the feeling among women politicians is that the neglect of women is mainly due to
dominance of men in the political process over the decades.
    
"This situation is to a great extent a reflection of male dominance of the society, despite Kerala having the highest
female literacy rate in the country. I think women should fight hard inside and outside their parties to assert their
due role in electoral politics", CPI-M's outgoing MP from Mavelikkara, C S Sujatha, told PTI. She, however, claimed the record of the CPI-M, which has so far sent four women to the Lok Sabha, is better than that of others.