1 month ago
Former IAS officer and BJD leader VK Pandian, on the occasion of Women’s Day on Friday, promised that one-third of the tickets for the Lok Sabha elections would be given to women.
Speaking to supporters at Shankha Bhavan, chief minister Naveen Patnaik’s confidant said: “Whether it is political work or government work, our chief minister keeps women as his top priority. He has instructed us that one-third of candidates for the Lok Sabha should be women and has asked us to ensure that they win elections. Even this time, one-third of the tickets will be given to women.”
The dominant political force in Odisha for close to 25 years, the BJD has taken several steps to reserve space for women.
Women in Odisha have emerged as loyal supporters of Naveen Patnaik due to his personality, clean image and the state government’s popular ‘Mission Shakti’ programme in which women self-help groups are given seed loans to do their own businesses.
Speaking of the success of the Mission Shakti programme, Pandian said: “While political empowerment is on one side, our chief minister has ensured social and economic empowerment through Mission Shakti. A total of 70,00,000 women have been included in Mission Shakti.”
He added: “Last year, the loan to self-help groups was Rs 12,000 crore. This year, I asked Sujata madam [Sujata Karthikeyan, head of Mission Shakti programme], who said that now it was Rs 15,000 crore. According to bankers, the big players default on repayment but our mothers repay loans 95 per cent of the times. Banks are competing with each other to give loans to Mission Shakti. This is a matter of great happiness.” Pandian also said in the next two years, this will reach Rs 20,000 crore.
In 2019, of the 21 Lok Sabha constituencies, the BJD had given one-third tickets — seven — to women. While women candidates won five of the seven constituencies, men won seven of the 14 constituencies that they fought on. While women had a success rate of more than 70 per cent, men had a success rate of 50 per cent. Premila Bisoyi from Aska, Manjula Mandal from Bhadrak, Rajashree Mallick from Jagatsinghpur, Sharmishta Sethi from Jajpur and 26-year-old Chandrani Murmu from Keonjhar were the BJD’s proud faces in Parliament.
In November 2018, the BJD had passed a resolution demanding that Parliament enact a law for 33 per cent representation to women in Parliament and state assemblies. Former chief minister of Odisha Biju Patnaik, then leading the Janta Dal government, had ensured 33 per cent reservation for women in panchayat and local body elections. In 2011, the Naveen Patnaik government had increased the quota for women in Panchayati Raj institutions from 33 per cent to 50 per cent.
Despite the BJD’s outreach to women, neither the Congress nor the BJP in the state have come up with promises to match the ruling party’s commitment to give a third of its Lok Sabha tickets to women.
POLL MATHS
Meanwhile, a formal deal is being hammered out between the BJD and the BJP, in which the BJP is aiming to get a higher number of seats in the Lok Sabha while the BJD will fight for a higher number in the Vidhan Sabha elections.
According to sources, the BJP may fight on 12 seats while BJD will contest from nine Lok Sabha constituencies. The BJP, however, is demanding 14 Lok Sabha seats. This means if the alliance works out, BJD will have fewer Lok Sabha constituencies. Despite that, the party is committed to giving one-third of these to women.
So far as Vidhan Sabha elections are concerned, BJD will fight on 100+ assembly constituencies while the BJP will fight on 40+. While a formal announcement is awaited, BJP’s state president Manmohan Samal, after returning to Bhubaneswar, added to the suspense by saying there will be no alliance between the BJP and BJD.
