No country for women in TN

Chennai, Apr 11: None of the six major political parties in

have given sufficient representation to the fairer sex in the April 24 Lok Sabha polls in the state, despite having claimed to espouse the cause of women in Parliament.

While ruling party AIADMK, which is captained by one of the popular woman leaders of the country -- J Jayalalithaa has alloted only four of the 39 seats across the state to women, DMK president M Karunanidhi, a strong advocate of the Women's Reservation Bill, has named only two candidates.

When reporters pointed this out to him recently, the 90-year-old patriarch sought to downplay it saying the state has had enough even with just one woman, indirectly referring to his arch rival, Chief Minister Jayalalithaa who takes a dig at him at every available opportunity.

Congress-led by UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi named only three candidates across the state. Even women leaders like Union Minister Jayanthi Natarajan from the state are seemed to have been overlooked. Jothimani, the All India General Secretary of Indian Youth Congress is one of the three women candidates of Congress, which has been isolated in the state for this Lok Sabha election.

The mega alliance of six parties led by BJP is no better. While the BJP, DMDK, MDMK, IJK and KMDK have not even named a single woman as their candidate, PMK was unexpectedly left with a woman candidate in V Sudha in Chidambaram (SC) constituency, after her husband's nomination was rejected for procedural lapses.

Even the traditional supporter of the Women's Reservation Bill - Left parties of CPI and CPI(M), have named only one and two women candidates respectively.

PTI