‘Women-free’ BJP in Bihar through ‘Nari Shakti’

What can explain the absence of even a single woman among the 17 BJP Lok Sabha candidates from Bihar? Rama Devi, the state’s only outgoing BJP MP, has been shown the door, making the BJP list ‘men only’ and calling the position ‘for men’.woman-free (Women Free) BJP.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi is making a lot of statements Woman Power Late. Recordings of his telephone conversations with BJP women candidates were telecast as news on TV, showing the importance he attached to women.

Neither any party nor the Prime Minister can stop shouting about the Women’s Reservation Bill passed by Parliament, the ‘Beti Bachao Beti Padhao’ campaign and schemes (allegedly) named to respect and uplift women: Woman Respect, women’s pride, happy prosperity. And yet, real women stay out in the cold?

In some ways, this reflects feudal conditions in the state, where men still have to take decisions and women are taken for granted. Even the Janata Dal (United) has given only two seats to women out of the 16 seats it is contesting.

The Rashtriya Janata Dal, which had violently opposed the Women’s Reservation Bill when it was first introduced in 1998, is likely to field at least five to six women this time. A far cry from 1998, when party MP Surendra Yadav snatched the proposed bill from the hands of then Deputy Prime Minister Lal Krishna Advani and tore it.

RJD has already given ticket to Archana Ravidas for Jamui seat, where voting is to be held in the first phase on April 19. Other women candidates are said to be Bima Bharti, Rohini Acharya, Misa Bharti, Anita Devi Mahato and daughter-in-law of former MP and Union Minister Kanti Singh.

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