Not a single woman got elected to the Lok Sabha in Orissa this time while the show put up by women in the simultaneous assembly polls was uninspiring. All the nine women, contesting the Lok Sabha elections, were trounced this time as the situation worsened as compared to the 2004 Lok Sabha polls when two women got elected from Orissa.
While BJP's Sangeeta Singhdeo, who represented Balangir Lok Sabha constituency, was humbled in her home turf, Archana Nayak, who had been elected from Kendrapara as a BJD candidate in the last polls, contested on BJP ticket from Bhubaneswar and lost. Equally dismal was the show put up by women in the assembly elections as their strength nosedived virtually by 50 per cent compared to the last polls.
Out of the 118 women candidates who had jumped into the battle field, only seven have emerged victorious in the state assembly elections this time, while there were as many as 14 women members in the last assembly. The newly-elected women representatives include six from the BJD, which has won a total of 103 seats in the assembly. Congress has only one woman in its winners' list of 27, while BJP with its dwindled tally of six failed to send a single woman to the House.