Mizoram polls: Very few women candidates in fray

Women voters outnumber male voters in Mizoram but not a single woman has been elected to the Mizoram Assembly in the last 25 years.

The situation does not appear different for the November 25 state polls as the two main parties - Congress and MNF - have named only one woman candidate each.

Women voters outnumber male voters by 12,707 in the electorate of 6,86,305.

The ruling Congress, which promised to nominate more woman this time around, fielded only one candidate, president of the Pradesh Mahila Congress Committee TBC Tlangthanmawii.

Tlangthanmawii would take on the Zoram Nationalist Party (ZNP) chief Lalduhawma and former Transport Minister K Sangthuama of the Mizo National Front (MNF), the senior partner of the Mizoram Democratic Alliance (MDA) in the Aizawl West - I seat.

The main opposition Mizo National Front (MNF), which inducted the first and only woman minister in 1987, also managed to nominate only one woman, Lalmalsawmi, a well-known local TV personality, who would take on the state Home minister R Lalzirliana in the Tawi constituency in Aizawl district.

Lalmalsawmi was elected as one of the six women councillors of the first Aizawl Municipal Council held on November three, 2010, in the reserved seats for women, and was now ready to jump into the all-male arena of politics where not a single woman was elected to the state legislature in the past 25 years.