India elects a record 78 women to 17th Lok Sabha: Here's who they are

However, this just makes up 14.36% of Parliament.

news Lok Sabha 2019

The 17th Lok Sabha will see the highest ever number of women in Parliament, 78 women have been elected from across the country. There is certainly more room for improvement, with the current proportion of women being just 14.36% in Parliament. This at a time when 48% of India’s population is female, according to the last Census. The single largest party at the Centre, the BJP, has also sent the most women to Parliament. Out of the 303 seats the party secured, 41 are women.

Across the country, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal sent the maximum number of women to the Lok Sabha, with 11 women being elected from each state. Uttar Pradesh has eight women MPs from the BJP, and one each from the Congress, BSP and Apna Dal (Soneylal). Mamata Banerjee-led All India Trinamool Congress gave 40% representation to women in the candidate list and therefore nine women from AITC have been elected to the Parliament. Two BJP women candidates were also elected from the state.

The South fared poorly when it came to electing women, with Kerala electing just one woman. Remya Haridas, who was elected from Alathur, unseated the MP in power and went on to become the second-ever Dalit woman MP from Kerala. She was one of 54 women candidates fielded by the Congress across the country. Kerala elected only one MP in 2014 and has continued the trend.

Tamil Nadu elected three women — Kanimozhi and Thamizhachi Thangapandian from the DMK and Jothimani from the Congress. Kanimozhi, who was a Rajya Sabha MP, won from Thoothukudi, and Thamizhachi was elected from Chennai South. The DMK only fielded 2 women candidates out of a total of 20, and both candidates won. Jothimani, on the other hand, won against five-time AIADMK MP M Thambidurai and won. Tamil Nadu had 64 women candidates in total. Overall, Tamil Nadu sent four women MPs to Parliament in 2014 and is down to three now.

BJP candidate Shobha Karandlaje and independent candidate Sumalatha Ambareesh won with large margins and increased the tally of women from Karnataka in the Lok Sabha by one — from one MP to two. Women’s representation is cutting a sorry figure in Karnataka this Lok Sabha election, with a total of only 27 women contesting from 28 seats in the state. This was up from 20 women who were fielded in 2014, out of whom only Shobha Karandlaje won.

The YSR Congress Party, which swept both the Assembly and Lok Sabha polls and won 22 out of 25 seats in the state has four women MPs. The party fielded four candidates, and all four of them have made it to the Parliament. Three of these women contested for the first time, and the fourth, Vanga Geetha, has been a Rajya Sabha MP. By fielding four women, 16% of the candidates fielded by the YSRCP had been women. There were five women MPs from pre-bifurcation Andhra in 2009, and three in 2014.

For the second time, Telangana has just one woman MP — the previous tenure was held by Kavitha Kalvakuntla, and this time, it’s been held by her namesake Kavitha Maloth, also from the TRS. India’s youngest state has been called out for not having adequate representation of women and this continued in this Lok Sabha poll too. Out of a total of 443 candidates, just 21 were women, and just six women were fielded from the Congress, BJP and TRS.

Here's the full list:

Andhra Pradesh

Chinta Anuradha — Amalapuram — YSRCP KV Satyavathi — Anakapalli — YSRCP Goddeti Madhavi — Araku Bapatla — YSRCP Vanga Geethaviswanath — Kakinada — YSRCP

Assam

Queen Oja — Gauhati — BJP

Bihar

Rama Devi — Sheohar — BJP Kavita Singh — Siwan — JD(U) Veena Devi — Vaishali — LJP

Chandigarh

Kirron Kher — Chandigarh—BJP

Chattisgarh

Jyotsna Charandas Mahant — Korba — Congress Renuka Singh Saruta — Sarguja — BJP Gomati Sai — Raigarh —BJP

Delhi

Meenakshi Lekhi — New Delhi —BJP

Gujarat

Darshana Jardosh — Surat — BJP Dr. Bharati Dhirubhai Shyal — Bhavnagar — BJP Rathva Gitaben Vajesingbhai — Chhota Udaipur — BJP Shardaben Patel — Mahesana — BJP Poonamben Hemantbhai — Jamnagar — BJP Ranjanben Dhananjay Bhatt — Vadodara — BJP

Haryana

Sunita Duggal — Sirsa — BJP

Jharkhand

Annpurna Devi — Kodarma — BJP Gita Kora — Singhbhum — Congress

Karnataka

Shobha Karandlaje — Udupi Chikmaglur — BJP Sumalatha Ambareesh — Mandya — Independent

Kerala

Remya Haridas— Alathur — Congress

Madhya Pradesh

Himadri Singh — Shahdol — BJP Pragya Singh Thakur — Bhopal — BJP Riti Pathak — Sidhi — BJP Sandhya Rai — Bhind — BJP

Maharashtra

Poonam Mahajan — Mumbai North Central — BJP Bharati Pawar — Dindori — BJP Raksha Khadse —Raver — BJP Navneet Rana — Amravati — Independent Supriya Sule — Baramati — NCP Bhawana Gawali — Yavatmal-Washim — Shiv Sena Pritam Gopinathrao Munde — Beed — BJP Heena Vijaykumar — Nandurbar — BJP

Meghalaya

Agatha Sangma Tura — Meghalaya — NPP

Odisha

Pramila Bisoyi — Aska — BJD Chandrani Murmu —Keonjhar — BJD Manjulata Mandal —Bhadrak — BJD Sarmistha Sethi — Jajpur — BJD Rajashree Mallick — Jagatsinghpur — BJD Sangeeta Kumari — Bolangir — BJP Aparajita Sarangi — Bhubaneswar — BJP

Punjab

Harsimrat Kaur Badal —Bathinda — Akali Dal Preneet Kaur — Patiala — Congress

Rajasthan

Diya Kumari — Rajsamand — BJP Ranjeeta Koli — Bharatpur — BJP Jaskaur Meena — Dausa —BJP

Tamil Nadu

Jothimani S — Karur— Congress Kanimozhi — Thoothukudi — DMK Thamizhachi Thangapandian — Chennai South —DMK

Telangana

Kavitha Malothu —Mahabubabad —TRS

Tripura

Pratima Bhoumik — Tripura West — BJP

Uttar Pradesh

Anupriya Singh Patel —Mirzapur — Apna Dal (Soneylal) Rita Bahuguna Joshi —Allahabad — BJP Smriti Irani —Amethi — BJP Dr. Sanghmitra Maurya — Badaun — BJP Hema Malini — Mathura — BJP Keshari Devi Patel — Phulpur — BJP Niranjan Jyoti — Fatehpur — BJP Rekha Verma — Dhaurahra — BJP Maneka Gandhi — Sultanpur — BJP Sangeeta Azad — Lalganj — BSP Sonia Gandhi — Rae Bareli —Congress

Uttarakhand

Mala Rajya Laxmi Shah — Tehri Garhwal — BJP

West Bengal