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Not even a quarter of the total MLA population in any State is women. The situation is such that, even in Tripura and West Bengal, the States that fare relatively well, the proportion of women MLAs are just 15 per cent and 14 per cent respectively.
Even in Karnataka, the State that just faced the polls, just 4 per cent of the new MLAs are women. The situation is worst in Mizoram, which has no women MLAs at all. The proportion of women MLAs is not more than 5 per cent in Himachal Pradesh, Nagaland, Puducherry, Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Meghalaya, Tamil Nadu, and Telangana too.
More than a third of the total women MLA population in the country — 37 per cent of them — are members of the Bharatiya Janata Party, the largest political party in the country. However, they form only 9 per cent of the BJP’s 1,363 MLAs. Sixty-one of the Indian National Congress MLA population is female, but again, they form just nine per cent of the total party MLAs. AITC and AAP have 34 and 19 women MLAs, respectively. Four of these MLAs are independent.
The low representation of women in State legislatures and parliament has always been an issue flagged by women’s rights activists in the country. In fact, the Women’s Reservation Bill, which seeks to amend the Constitution to reserve a third of all seats in the Lok Sabha and in all state legislative assemblies for women, has been pending to be passed by the Lok Sabha since 2010.
The richest among them
Wealth inequality is quite wide among the women MLAs in the country. On the one hand, there is Andhra Pradesh Minister for Health, Family Welfare, and Medical Education Rajini Vidadala, with assets worth ₹128 crore, making her the richest among the women MLAs. On the other side of the spectrum is Punjab’s AAP MLA, Narinder Kaur Bharaj, who declared that she has a wealth of just ₹24,000.
Vidadala is a first-time MLA, and the major source of her wealth comes from a US-based company that her spouse owns, according to her affidavit.
The second-richest woman MLA is also a first-timer, Rivaba Jadeja, with a wealth of ₹97.36 crore. She is married to cricketer Ravindra Jadeja. Her affidavit too shows that most of her wealth comes from her husband’s deposits and loans, property that he owns, and wealth inherited from the Hindu Undivided Family. The third on the list is Goa’s Delilah Michael Lobo, a business owner. She and her husband are Goa’s richest legislators. They own assets worth ₹92.91 crore.
The next on the list is Naina Singh Chautala, the daughter-in-law of former Haryana Chief Minister Om Prakash Chautala. She owns a wealth of ₹91.79 crore. She is also the wife of former MP Ajay Singh Chautala and the mother of Haryana Deputy Chief Minister Dushyant Chautala.
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