1957 to 2019: Number of women candidates grew 16-fold

In 1957, just 45 women candidates were contesting the Lok Sabha election; by 2019, this figure had risen to 726, Election Commission data shows, even as the percentage of women in Parliament has increased from 4.5% in 1957 to 14.4% in 2019. The number of male candidates, on the other hand, has grown from 1,474 in 1957 to 7,322 in 2019.

This means that the number of men contesting has multiplied by five times; for women, the growth has been 16-fold. In 1957, a mere 2.9% of candidates were women; in 2019, they make up around 9% of the total pool of candidates. However, the number of women candidates has never yet crossed 1,000.

A perusal of the ECI data shows that in the second general election in 1957, out of the 45 women candidates in the fray, 22 won, indicating a 48.88% success rate. That has declined consistently ever since; in 2019, women’s success rate was just 10.74%, as only 78 of the 726 women candidates won seats.

The winning percentage of male candidates dropped from 31.7% in 1957 to just 6.4% in 2019.

This is not, however, a marker for any trends in the winnability of men and women; it simply reflects the fact that the number of candidates of both sexes has grown even as the number of seats in the Lok Sabha remained the same, experts note.

“This just shows the maturing of the Indian democracy and the fact that more and more women are entering the fray,” says political analyst Tara Krishnaswamy, co-founder of the NGO Political Shakti.