Women in politics: Glass ceiling remains in poll-bound states, shows data

Parliament passed the Women’s Reservation Bill on September 21, reserving a third of the seats in the Lok Sabha and legislative Assemblies for women. While it will come into effect after the next delimitation exercise, there was expectation that its passage would persuade at least the mainstream political parties, who supported the Bill, to field more women in the current round of Assembly polls. However, as the CSDS-Lokniti data on the number of women candidates fielded by principal parties in fray in the five poll-going reveals, the passage of the Bill has not meant political parties fielding more women candidates.