The Mizoram Assembly will not have a ‘single’ woman lawmaker in its newly elected assembly, as all the 15 female candidates in the fray lost in the November 28 election in the state where women outnumber men in the voters’ list.
Of the total 209 candidates, 15 were women — the highest ever to have contested the assembly polls in the state so far. Mizoram has never been an easy pitch for women.
Of the 7,07,395 electorates, around 6,20,332 voters had cast their votes on November 28, of whom 3,20,401 were women.
The Mizo National Front (MNF) which bagged 26 seats in the 40-member House, had not fielded a single woman candidate. While the Indian National Congress (INC) only fielded one women nominee.
The BJP, which won only one seat, had put up the maximum number of women candidates at 8 in Mizoram Assembly Elections. The Zoram People’s Movement (ZPM) had put up two women nominees in the polls.
The total 15 women candidates on the fray together secured only 14,482 votes with Lalrinpuii of the ZPM, who contested from Lunglei South, getting 3,991 votes – the highest among the women candidates. The second highest vote scoring woman candidate was Chawngthu, who bagged 3,815 votes in Hrangturzo seat.
In the 2013 election, there were six women candidates and no woman was elected to the state assembly.
The Mizo Hmeichhe Insuihkhawm Pawl (MHIP), an influential women’s organization in the state, helped Vanlalawmpuii Chawngthu win a byelection in 2014 and eventually become the Minister of State for Sericulture, Fisheries, and Cooperation in Lal Thanhawla’s Congress government.
Chawngthu would probably not have been considered had Lal Thanhawla not given up Hrangturzo, one of the two seats he won in 2013.