BJP fields maximum women candidates
The saffron party has fielded seven women candidates, which includes four sitting MPs.
Mumbai: While there are talks of giving 33 per cent reservation to women in the Parliament, major political parties in the state have again shied away from giving tickets to women candidates in the upcoming Lok Sabha polls. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has emerged as the top party, that has fielded maximum seven women candidates, followed by Congress with three candidates.
After forging an alliance with the Shiv Sena, the BJP is contesting only 25 seats in the state. Despite this, they have fielded seven women candidates, which includes four sitting MPs. However, it’s ally Sena as well as the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) have only one female nominee each in the elections.
In the six Lok Sabha seats in North Maharashtra, the BJP has fielded four female candidates, including two sitting MPs. In Nandurbar, the party has again nominated Dr Heena Gavit, whereas Raksha Khadse, the daughterin-law of senior BJP leader Eknath Khadse, is again contesting from Raver constituency.
According to the reports, the BJP denied tickets to two sitting male MPs to allot tickets to women candidates. In Dindori, the party has fielded Bharati Pawar, who quit the NCP and joined BJP, while denying the claims of sitting MP Harishchandra Chavan. In Jalgaon too, the party decided to nominate MLC Smita Wagh against the re-nomination of AT Pawar, the sitting MP.
The names of sitting MPs Pritam Munde and Poonam Mahajan, daughter of late BJP leader Gopinath Munde and Pramod Mahajan respectively, were always considered to be a certainty for being nominated again by the BJP.
While Pritam will be contesting from Beed, Poonam will fight from Mumbai North Central.
The BJP has thrown a surprise by naming relatively unknown candidate Kanchan Kul to take on heavyweight candidate Supriya Sule, the daughter of NCP chief Shared Pawar, in the high profile Baramati constituency.
The three women candidates of Congress include Charulata Tokas, the daughter of former state unit chief late Prabha Rao, from Vardha seat. Party’s two other female candidates — Priya Dutt from Mumbai North Central and Urmila Matondkar from Mumbai North — are among the few high-profile nominees. In Vidarbha, Shiv Sena’s only woman candidate will be sitting MP Bhavana Gawli from the Yavatmal-Washim constituency.