“The Pessimist Sees Difficulty In Every Opportunity. The Optimist Sees Opportunity In Every Difficulty.”

The major parties present a similar picture. The BJP is contesting 152 seats, the largest share among all parties. It has fielded 17 women. The Shiv Sena (Shinde) will be contesting 80 seats and  has given candidature to seven women, which means less than ten percent. Deputy chief minister Ajit Pawar’s NCP has five women on its list while it has 52 candidates. Under MVA, Sharad Pawar’s NCP has granted somewhat higher representation since it has eleven women out of its total number of 87 seats. The Congress is the main MVA constituent, contesting 103 seats. Though its leader is Sonia Gandhi, the party has given an opportunity to just seven women. Uddhav Thackeray’s Sena is not known for giving much weightage to women. However, while it is contesting 96 seats, it has given nomination to nine women, a little around ten percent.

This election in Maharashtra has many novel features. One is that there are six political outfits struggling for the largest share of the seats. Secondly, this is the first assembly election after the parliament has adopted the Women’s Reservation Bill. However, the provision will come into effect much later and hence its impact will be known only afterwards. Interestingly, the Lok Sabha 2024 polls saw that all major parties fielded a token number of women. The result is that just 74 women grace the present Lok Sabha. Ironically, before the bill, there were 78 women MPs elected in 2019.

As for the assembly, Maharashtra elected 24 women members in 2019. The BJP and the unified Shiv Sena were in alliance at the time. The BJP had fielded the highest number of women, 17, among all major parties. The Shiv Sena, on the other hand, had fielded only seven. Thus, the saffron total was 24. The opposition Congress and unified NCP alliance had then fielded 46 women.

The coming assembly election does not show any drastic departure from the practice of giving mere lip service to women’s cause in Mumbai, which has 36 seats. According to the list of candidates, there are 16 women contesting across 15 seats in Mumbai’s vast battleground. The BJP)has fielded three women — Manisha Chaudhary, Bharati Lavhekar and Vidya Thakur. All three are sitting MLAs and all are from the western suburbs. Thakur was a minister of state between 2014 and 2019. In the previous election, the Congress had three women candidates. Of them, Varsha Gaikwad was elected. She is the daughter of former MP Eknath Gaikwad, winning her Dharavi seat comfortably. At present, Gaikwad has been elected from the North Central constituency to the Lok Sabha. She has secured assembly nomination for her sister, Jyoti Gaikwad, who is the Congress party’s only woman candidate from the metropolis. She, too, is contesting from Dharavi. In a bid to strengthen her prospects, she has started using her maiden surname, Gaikwad, from Girigosavi.

CM Shinde’s Shiv Sena has fielded four women from Mumbai. The candidates include Byculla MLA Yamini Jadhav. After winning the last election, she decided to join the Shinde faction of the Sena. A corporator, her husband Yashwant Jadhav is an influential Sena leader. Another high profile candidate is Manisha Waikar, wife of MP Ravindra Waikar, for the Jogeshwari East seat.

The Sena (UBT) has three women candidates, including sitting MLA Rutuja Latke, from Andheri east. She is the widow of Ramesh Latke, who was elected from Andheri East in 2019. After his death, Rutuja won the 2022 byelection, following a sympathy wave. Other female candidates are Pravina Morajkar and Shraddha Jadhav. Both were Mumbai corporators.

The Nationalist Congress Party led by Ajit Pawar has given an opportunity to Sana Malik, daughter of former minister Nawab Malik, who is out on bail. Though he himself is contesting in spite of the BJP’s reservations, the Nationalist Congress Party has decided to stand by him. On the other hand, the Nationalist Congress Party under veteran Sharad Pawar has fielded Rakhee Jadhav, a three-term corporator from Ghatkopar and Sangeeta Vaje.

In a surprise move, the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena chief Raj Thackeray gave entry to Trupti Sawant, wife of the late Bala Sawant, who was MLA from Bandra East.  He died suddenly and Trupti was made the Sena candidate for the 2015 by-election. She defeated former Chief Minister Narayan Rane in a bitter contest. However, Trupti chose to stand as an independent in 2019 and lost against Congress party’s Zeeshan Siddique, who is now with the NCP of Ajit Pawar. His father, Baba Siddiqui’s recent murder, can impact the outcome in the constituency.

Thus, in 2019, while eleven women contested from Mumbai, five were successful. Except for Varsha Gaikwad, all are contesting in 2024.

One more notable feature of this year’s elections is that a record 17 LS constituencies of Maharashtra saw electoral battles in which women candidates played a vital role. Seven women candidates, including Supriya Sule, were  victorious.

The Maharashtra government’s Ladki Bahin Yojana is making waves at present. Under this scheme, a monthly financial grant of Rs.1500 is electronically transferred to every eligible woman in the state. It is estimated that nearly 2.50 crore women are its beneficiaries. Maha Yuti leaders are confident that the scheme will not just empower women, but it will shower political bonanza for the ruling saffron alliance.