Feminine issues completely missing
Nishikant Khajuria
JAMMU, Apr 6: Notwithstanding the female voters having almost half the number of total electors in Jammu and Kashmir, there are only three woman candidates, out of total 100, in fray on five Parliamentary seats in the State where the process for filing of nominations for the Lok Sabha elections has been completed thus giving a complete miss to feminine issues on agenda of the contestants and their ongoing canvassing.
There are 3775227 female voters across the State, which is 48.13 percent of the total electors registered with the office of Chief Electoral Officer, J&K, for the Lok Sabha elections 2019. However, the percentage of female candidates in fray for the five Parliamentary seats in J&K, is merely three.
Besides PDP president and former Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti, there are only two female candidates, one from Anantnag and another from Udhampur, who are contesting the Lok Sabha elections in Jammu and Kashmir.
Pertinent to mention that except Ladakh, which is going to polls in the fifth phase, the filing of nominations by the candidates has been completed and so far there are 100 contestants in fray for the five Lok Sabha seats in Jammu and Kashmir.
As per the official electoral data, there are total 7842979 electors in J&K. The number of male electors is 4067593, which is 51.86 percent of the total and 292366 more than the female electors. Among the total, 159 electors belong to Third Gender, whose number is highest in Udhampur-Doda Parliamentary constituency (37), followed by Anantnag (35), Baramulla (32), Srinagar (25), Jammu (15), Ladakh (3).
The highest number of female electors is in Jammu-Poonch Lok Sabha seat (964838), which is followed by Udhampur-Kathua-Doda Parliamentary constituency (789105), Anantnag seat (672879), Baramulla (636059), Srinagar ( 627282) and then Ladakh (85063).
Ironically, 2228179 female electors in three Parliamentary constituencies have no option to vote for any woman candidate as all the contestants on these Lok Sabha seats, including Jammu-Poonch, Baramulla and Srinagar, are male. Including Mehbooba Mufti, there are only three women candidates in fray; two on Anantnag and one on Udhampur-Doda seat, notwithstanding tall claims of all the political parties on gender equality and adequate representation to females.
Leh is the only Assembly constituency across the State, where the number of female electors is more than the male voters. There are 35728 male and 35746 female electors. Leh is followed by Nubra Assembly constituency, where the number of female voters is 6913, slightly less than male electors, whose number is 6967.
Difference between the number of male and female electors is very thin in some Assembly constituencies like Jammu-East (26546: 26065), Chamb (39661: 39591), Habbakadal (28422:28151), Bijbehara (47067:46222) and Zanskar (11162:11051).
In absence of women candidates , the issues of females are completing missing on agenda of the contestants, mainstream political parties in the fray and their manifestos this entirely ignoring almost half of the total electors in Jammu and Kashmir.
While the fate of Women Reservation Bill has been hanging in balance since several years, the mainstream political parties continue to avoid giving representation to almost half of the total population, which is detrimental to growth of democracy and inclusive development of the country.
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