Bengaluru: The Siddaramaiah-led Congress government in Karnataka Sunday nominated Bilkis Bano, a former Zila Panchayat member, as one of the seven candidates to the legislative council ahead of the MLC elections scheduled on 13 June. Bilkis Bano will just be the second woman representative from the party in the 75-member upper House.
Earlier, actor-politician Umashree, who is a former minister and a close aide of Chief Minister Siddaramaiah, was nominated to the legislative council in August last year.
Terms of six Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), four Congress and one JD(S) member will end on 17 June. Based on the party’s existing assembly strength, the Congress with 133 MLAs can field 7 candidates, the BJP with 66 can field 7 and the JD(S) with 19 can field one.
The Congress candidates include N.S. Boseraju, K. Govindaraj, Vasant Kumar, Ivan D’Souza and Jagdev Guttedar. The BJP has nominated C.T. Ravi, N. Ravi Kumar and M.G. Mule. The JD(S) is yet to announce its candidate.
The state government as well as the Congress have banked on the support of women in the ongoing Lok Sabha elections, however, its own leaders have accused the party of failing its women workers.
“After being firmly told no woman will be given MLC, finally giving one to Smt Bilkis Bano is just a consultation (consolation) prize, women should have been given at least 3, as there is less than 5 percent representation in Council! Many Congratulations Smt Bilkis Bano,” Kavitha Reddy, the general secretary of the Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee (KPCC) posted on X (formerly Twitter).
After being firmly told no woman will be given MLC to finally giving one to Smt Bilkis Bano is just a consultation prize, women should have been given at least 3, as there is less than 5% representation in Council!
Many Congratulations Smt Bilkis Bano 😊😊#KavithaReddyKR… pic.twitter.com/8I5gPM1yrn
— Kavitha Reddy | ಕವಿತಾ ರೆಡ್ಡಿ (@KavithaReddyKR) June 2, 2024
The denial of opportunities for women has led to an open outpouring of dissent from some sections of the Congress leaders, who accused its top leadership of extending important tickets and nominations only if the person is related to another leader. Even within the Karnataka Congress unit, the Congress president and all five working presidents are men.
The pattern was evident with Yathindra Siddaramaiah, the son of the incumbent chief minister, being among the seven candidates nominated by the All India Congress Committee (AICC) Sunday.
Moreover, in the Lok Sabha elections, the party fielded six women candidates of which five were immediate family members of sitting or former ministers.
For instance, Sowmya Reddy (Bengaluru South) is the daughter of transport minister Ramalinga Reddy while Priyanka Jarkiholi (Chikkodi) is the daughter of PWD minister Satish Jarkiholi.
Samyukta Patil (Bagalkot) is the daughter of textile minister Shivanand Patil, while Geetha Shivarajkumar (Shivamogga) is the daughter of former Karnataka CM S. Bangarappa and sister of education minister Madhu Bangarappa.
Prabha Mallikarjun (Davangere) is the wife of mines & geology and horticulture minister S.S. Mallikarjun and daughter-in-law of veteran Congress leader Shamanur Shivashankarappa.
Dr Anjali Nimbalkar, a former MLA and the Congress candidate from Uttara Kannada, who is the wife of a senior IPS officer, is the only Congress candidate not directly related to any leaders.
Meanwhile, even the BJP had just two women candidates — Shobha Karandlaje and Gayatri Siddheshwar— of which the former is a close aide of B.S. Yediyurappa and the latter is the wife of a former Union minister.
ThePrint reached Dr Pushpa Amarnath, president of the Congress Mahila Morcha, over calls but failed to get a comment. This report will be updated if and when a response is received.
‘Denied for no reason’
According to an analysis by ThePrint, in the 2018 Karnataka assembly elections, only seven of the 224 MLAs (3.1 percent), were women, which jumped to 10 (4.5 percent) in May 2023.
Moreover, according to the latest voter data, there are 999 women per 1,000 in Karnataka, while the state has 2.7 crore women voters.
In a post on ‘X’ Saturday, Kavitha Reddy questioned the Congress’ commitment to its women workers and support base.
“Shri @RahulGandhi if independent women who have fearlessly worked for the party and are committed to the ideology are not even given MLC opportunity and currently there is a single woman who just came on quota not on merit in the Legislative Council because only men want everything for themselves or for their female relatives, it will be a biggest insult to the core values and ideology of the Congress Party!…” she said in the post.
Shri @RahulGandhi if independent women who have fearlessly worked for the party and are committed to the ideology are not even given MLC opportunity and currently there is a single woman who just came on quota not on merit in the Legislative Council because only men want… pic.twitter.com/r0BQQRsszJ
— Kavitha Reddy | ಕವಿತಾ ರೆಡ್ಡಿ (@KavithaReddyKR) June 1, 2024
“Don’t betray the women workers in the party! Politics is brutal for independent women, don’t make us feel worse by denying the deserving one!”
“What the leaders in the Congress can’t see are the Independent Women who have made their mark Only on Merit and not been given an opportunity till now, denied for no real reason or the criteria gets changed by Leaders based on their wishes!….” Kavitha Reddy said in a Facebook post.
She went on to question why the male leaders were unable to share power with women and ended her post by raising doubts about the claims of social justice.
“I believe that ideology of Congress is the Preamble of our Constitution, and that Social Justice is a BIG ZERO and just Lip Service without Gender Justice…” Kavitha added.
(Edited by Richa Mishra)