Women fare poorly in HP assembly polls

There were 26 women in the fray including seven from BJP and four from Congress but only three candidates, Vidya Stokes and Asha Kumari (both Congress) and Sarveen Chowdhary (BJP) won the elections.

The defeated women candidates include the three sitting BJP member Renu Chaddha (Dalhousie), Urmil Thakur (Sujanpur) and Vinod Chandel (Doon).

As many as 33.49 lakh voters including 16.47 lakh men and 17.02 women had exercised their franchise in the one day polling on November 4.

The performance of Independents was impressive as five out of 106 independents in the fray won the polls while they finished second in five other constituencies.

In 2007 polls, only three independents had won and all of them sought re-election on BJP ticket and lost.

The Himachal Lokhit Party (HLP), which fielded 36 candidates, won only one seat while it cornered sizable number of votes in seven other constituencies.

However, the CPI (M) which contested 16 seats and was banking on the victory in recent Shimla Municipal polls drew a blank.

The BSP which had one seat in the last elections failed to open its account and all other parties which entered the fray met the same fate.