Patna: Bihar Sees Historic Increase in Women LS Representatives

By: WE Staff | Wednesday, 5 June 2024

BIHAR, which has five women MPs in the Lok Sabha for the first time in more than two decades, has three women ministers: Upendra Kumar Singh, Ramkripal Yadav and Menaka Sureshji Akhouri, all from the Bihar Vidhan Sabha.

This increase represents the highest number of women that were elected in the state since 1999, 1.3 percent candidate shrinkage as compared to the previous election when it comes to women. Earlier, Bihar had two women MPs back in 2004, three in 2009, one more in a biennial election held in 2010, and two women MPs in 2014, and there we saw an increase in the number to three in 2019.

The last five women were elected in 1999 when Bihar had not been divided into smaller segments yet. Out of the recent winners, LJP (RV) candidate Veena Devi has defended her seat in Vaishali against RJD candidate Vijay Kumar Shukla by 89,634 votes margin. Another close victory was recorded in the hands of the elder daughter of RJD leader Lalu Prasad, Misa Bharti who emerged the winner for Patliputra seat by beating Kripal Ram Yadav of the BJP by 85170 votes. This was the first time Yadav lost the seat since he was first elected in 2014.

Indeed, in Sheohar, Lovely Anand of JD(U), the wife of strongman Anand Mohan Singh, defeated RJD’s Ritu Jaiswal by 29,143 votes. JD (U) candidate Vijayalakshmi Devi was triumph in the Siwan seat by defeating Independent Hena Shahab, wife of the slaindon-turned-politician Mohammad Shahabuddin by 92,857 votes. Awadh Bihari Chaudhary the former Speaker of the Legislative Assembly of Bihar and now a RJD candidate also contested for Siwan constituency but was defeated.

In this election, 497 aspiring candidates were in the contest for the respective seats out of which only 38 were women. JDU brought two women candidates while LJP (RV) also fielded two and RJD which presented the highest number of women candidates with 6 in 2024 polls. None of the major Congress or BJP parties presented any female candidates for an election. The Patliputra constituency had the maximum number of women contestants that was four in number and Muzaffarpur the second with three in number. Unsurprisingly, a total of 16 seats were completely bereft of female contenders.