The Road to Legislature for Women: A Case Study of the Indian Parliament

Abstract

Women’s under-representation in the legislature has been a matter of concern globally. There are three gateways namely: eligibility, selection, and election which a candidate must pass through to become a member of a legislative body in a country. The main objective of the present study is to examine the willingness or unwillingness of the political parties in promoting women candidates to become members of legislative bodies.  Hence the study analyses the role of political parties as “gatekeeper” for the selection of women as party candidates in elections at national level. Secondary data was used for the analysis and to reach the conclusions. The study demonstrates only a marginal increase during the study period (1999 to 2019) in the nomination of women candidates by national political parties. The study also suggests that the success rate of women candidates in the general elections was relatively higher compared to their men counterparts despite party barriers at the pre-selection level. Therefore, it can be argued that one of the major reasons for women’s under-representation in legislative bodies in India is exclusionary practices of political parties in the pre-selection of women candidates despite their relatively higher winning ability in elections.