Friday, Apr 19, 2024 | Last Update : 06:51 PM IST
Maharashtra sends 8 women MPs to 17th Lok Sabha
Prominent political parties had fielded only 11 women, of which, eight won.
Mumbai: Eight women, more than half of them from the BJP, have made it to the 17th Lok Sabha from the state, which sends 48 MPs to Parliament, the second highest after Uttar Pradesh.
The women candidates who emerged victorious in the 2019 elections are Supriya Sule (NCP, Baramati); Bhavana Gawli (Shiv Sena, Yavat-mal-Washim); Pritam Munde (Beed), Raksha Khadse (Raver), Heena Gavit (Nandurbar), Poonam Mahajan (Mumbai north central), Bharati Pawar (Dindori) — all from the BJP; and Navnit Rana (NCP-backed independent, Amravati).
Prominent political parties had fielded only 11 women, of which, eight won. Interestingly, most of them belong to political families. Ms Sule is the daughter of NCP chief Sharad Pawar. Ms Mahajan is the daughter of BJP leader, late Pram-od Mahajan; while Ms Munde is the daughter of BJP leader Gopinath Munde. Ms Khadse is the daughter-in-law of BJP leader Eknath Khadse. Ms Gavit is the daughter of Vijaykumar Gavit, a former minister in the Congress government. Bharati Pawar is the daughter-in-law of former NCP leader, late A.T. Pawar. Ms Gawli is the daughter of Shiv Sena leader Pundalik Gawli, who won from the Yavatmal-Washim seat in 1996 and 1998.
Ms Sule retained her seat for the third consecutive time with a margin of 155,774 votes. Ms Gawli also held on to Yavatmal-Washim for the fifth time, defeating Congress’ Man-ikrao Thakre by a margin of 117,939 votes. Ms Khad-se retained her seat by a margin of 335,882 votes; while Ms Munde won with 168,368 votes and Ms Gavit romped home with 95,629 more ballots than her nearest rival.
Ms Rana, the wife of independent MLA Ravi Rana, is a first-time winner. She defeated Shiv Sena veteran Anand Adsul by a margin of 36,951 votes in Amravati. Mr Rana has been supporting the Fadnavis-led BJP government since 2014.
Ms Pawar won from Dindori by a margin of 198,779 votes. She had contested from the same seat as a NCP nominee in 2014 and lost to Haris-hchandra Chavan of the BJP. Ms Pawar joined the BJP ahead of the Lok Sabha polls and the party fielded her from Dindori, replacing its sitting MP Chavan.
Of the 867 candidates in the fray in Maharashtra, 80 were women.
