50% women elected in Lucknow Cantt Board elections

LUCKNOW: Here’s a model that may be a step forward in deducing a solution in the two-decade long women’s reservation bill debate. The Lucknow Cantonment Board election results, which were announced on Monday, appointed as many women corporators as men.

Out of the eight wards that were up for election, women assumed the responsibility for four. And this feat could be pulled off even though the reservation wasn’t equivalent to proportion of women winners witnessed at the results. The number of seats reserved for women were 3 out of 8- namely wards 4, 6 and 8.

Then how is it that women won from non-reserved seats? This was because the number of women candidates fielded by the parties itself was almost fifty percent. In exact terms, 22 of the 49 total candidates that stepped up to the plate were women. The woman who won from an unreserved seat was Roopadevi, from ward number 3. Among the candidates contesting from the reserved seats, Anjum Ara was elected, defeated her sister-in-law Poonam Pandey.

The elected corporators would now go on to elect the vice-chairman of the Lucknow Cantonment Board at a special board meeting. In a TOI report, the elected corporators were said to have pledged to take up the pending civic works in their respective wards and to take up all the problems and grievances of the public on priority basis.

These elections are an excellent example of how reservation must be implemented at various levels, starting with the party level, in order to achieve the goal of equal representation.

ORIGINAL SOURCE: Times of India

Trek Earth>