556 Women contested in 2009 General Elections

General Elections 2009 witnessed a good number of women candidates participating in the race for the 15th Lok Sabha. Out of 556 women in all, 134 contested from the National parties while 27 were given tickets from State Parties. Others included 188 from Registered Parties (Unrecognized) and 207 independents

In General Elections 2009, BJP fielded 44 women contestants while INC fielded 43 women. Out of these, 23 women contestants from INC and 13 women contestants from BJP won the Elections.

Amongst other national Parties, Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) gave tickets to 28 women in all out of which only 4 candidates won. CPM and CPI gave 6 and 4 tickets respectively to women with one women winning from CPM while none women contestant could reach Lok Sabha from CPI. NCP gave tickets to seven female candidates, with two of them winning seats.

       State-wise, the most number of women candidates was from Uttar Pradesh (80 seats) where 100 women contested with 13 of them winning. In Maharashtra (48 seats) 55 women contested but only 3 won. In Bihar (40 seats), 46 women contested and 4 of them reached the Lok Sabha.

Courtesy: Press Information Bureau (pib.nic.in)