Again, this is getting written on election day in Uttarakhand. What that means is that it will largely end up being an account of numbers–how many women and how many mentions in a manifesto. The lack of consistent, everyday monitoring means that we do not get to track campaign speeches for misogyny. This election watch project has also missed out on checking out criminal charges of candidates. Notwithstanding these shortcomings, I would say it is worth finishing what we started so here is a gender analysis of the election in Uttarakhand.
How many women?
| Last update: | Feb 15, 2017 | |
| Assembly size: | 70 | |
| Source: | elections.in | |
| Seats contested | Women nominees | |
| Samajwadi Party | 51 | NA |
| Uttarakhand Kranti Dal | 70 | NA |
| BJP | 70 | 5 |
| Congress | 70 | 9 |
| BSP | 24 | 1 |
| Rashtriya Lok Dal | 3 | 0 |
What is left to say about the low percentage of women nominees?
Gender in the manifestos
As hard as it is to find gender sensitivity in party manifestos, it is hard to find the manifestos themselves. What is the point of a manifesto that cannot be easily found in the public domain? It must be to minimises traces of promises made and the opportunity cost of accountability.
Based on a news report, the Congress manifesto promises 33% reservation for women in government jobs. The other promise with gender transformational potential is to set up five aapda mitra (in every village?) or disaster relief workers. If 2-3 of them were women, that would alter the face of disaster mitigation, relief and rehabilitation in Uttarakhand. However, we have no way of knowing more.
The BJP manifesto, also culled from a newsreport, includes a cash gift to girls: “Rs. 5,000 for every girl child born in poor families” and a removal of the age bar for widow pensions at Rs 1000. Very interestingly, it promises that, “The opinion of all women on triple talaq will be taken and placed in front of Supreme Court.”
For the other parties, there did not even seem to be reports on the manifesto release. Did they not bother?
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