Congress candidate Prabha Mallikarjun shares her joy with her husband and Minister S S Mallikarjun after the announcement of the Lok Sabha election results in Davangere.
DH Photo
With only three seats, Karnataka will see the best representation of women in the parliament for the second time after the 1991 Lok Sabha elections. This is also the election in which women voters outvoted men in 17 of the 28 Lok Sabha constituencies.
Of the six candidates Congress fielded, Dr Prabha Mallikarjun and Priyanka Jarkiholi have won from Davangere and Chikkodi constituencies respectively. Both are political greenhorns and belong to political families. Priyanka is the daughter of Minister of Public Works Department Sathish Jarkiholi and Dr Prabha is the wife of Mines and Geology Minister S S Mallikarjun.
BJP’s Shobha Karandlaje has emerged victorious from Bangalore North, becoming the first woman Lok Sabha MP to be elected from the three constituencies in Bengaluru Urban.
Hattrick win
She is also one of the few women who have represented Karnataka in the parliament for three consecutive terms. She represented Udupi-Chikmagalur constituency in the previous two terms. Sarojini Mahishi, the first woman Lok Sabha MP from Karnataka, holds the record, having served four terms from Dharwad.
Gayatri Siddeshwar lost in the Davangere constituency, which saw two women contesting elections from two major political parties, a rare development.
Congress’ Sowmya Reddy, Geetha Shivarajkumar, Anjali Nimbalkar and Samyukta Patil lost from Bangalore South, Shimoga, Uttara Kannada and Bagalkot constituencies respectively.
In all, 42 women candidates had contested the elections this time.
‘No political equality for women yet’
“There has been an underrepresentation of women from Karnataka in parliament. This has historically been the case. We can have no better evidence that without the law that mandates women’s reservation, it is evident that even after 75 years of independence, after 18 Lok Sabha elections, we simply have not achieved political equality for women. Political parties have failed to discipline themselves into genuine representation. If they had, they would be fielding women in proportion to the population,” political activist Tara Krishnaswamy said.