Few women politicians find place in Bengal poll candidate list

, Mar 8: Though most vocal among political parties on the passage of the Women's Reservations Bill, arch rivals

and Left parties have failed to set an example when it comes to nominating women candidates for the Lok Sabha election in

.

While the candidate list for the 42 Lok Sabha seats announced by the Trinamool Congress has 11 women, the Left Front list has only six. As the world celebrates International Women's Day today, the discrepancy between promises of empowering women and efforts to keep them becomes prominent, particularly because the TMC is headed by a woman - Mamata Banerjee and the CPI-M has a prominent woman leader - Brinda Karat Although the TMC has nominated more women candidates than the Left Front, it has nonetheless failed to give one-third of the seats to women.

Asked to account for this, TMC general secretary Mukul Roy told PTI, "It is a continuous process and nomination of more women will happen slowly. In the panchayat election, we had given 50 per cent nomination to women candidates. In the Lok Sabha, we have given tickets to 11 women candidates."

In the 42-member Bengal ministry too, there are only three women ministers. The CPI(M) leadership, on the other hand, accepted that there should have been more women candidates in the party's list of candidates, but sought to put the blame on the district grassroot level leadership whose mindset, he acknowledged, had not undergone much change and acted as a roadblock.

"We may have failed to convince the district and grassroot level leadership on nominating more women candidates," former minister and CPI(M) central committee member Rekha Goswami told PTI.

PTI