As the Bill for reservation of one-third seats for women in Parliament and state assemblies is set to be tabled in the Lower House, an analysis of all 15 Lok Sabhas shows an appalling figure of their representation -- less than seven per cent since independence.
According to data available on the Lok Sabha website, out of 8,303 MPs who have represented various constituencies in the last 63 years, only 559, or about 6.8 per cent, were women.
The data shows that the present House has the maximum number of women lawmakers (59, or 10.83 per cent), while the sixth Lok Sabha saw the minimum of 21 women MPs or a meagre 3.77 per cent.
The statistics further reveals that the number of women legislators in the Parliament has, however, improved in the last 19 years when their number has never been less than 40.
The total women representatives during the 10th, 11th and 12th Lok Sabha have been 42, 41, 44, respectively. However, the next two Lok Sabhas (13th and 14th) witnessed little improvement with 52 women candidates being elected to the Lower House both the times.
Before that, the only Lok Sabha which had more than 40 women members was the eighth -- between 1984 and 1989 -- that had 45 women MPs.
The first and second Lok Sabhas had 24 women MPs each, while the figure rose to 36 in the third term but in the next three general elections, their number declined. It was 32 (5.79 per cent) in fourth Lok Sabha while it further reduced to 27 in the fifth one.
In seventh Lok Sabha, the number of female MPs was 32 which increased to 45 in the eighth one and again plunged to 28 in the next Lok Sabha.
