Not just quota, legacy matters for women to enter politics

It is not only the percentage of seats reserved for women in politics, but also the political legacy which is the determining factor for women to enter politics, says a research conducted on the obstacles for women political activists in obtaining power without family legacy.

But most of the women’s participation currently observed in the political structure is the result of reservation policies, mentions the research conducted by students of social work from SNDT University.

This group of students conducted the research under Partners for Urban Knowledge Action and Research (PUKAR) youth fellowship programme.

Shweta Surve, a member, said: “After research, it was clear that for 90% of women, political legacy has played an important role. We concluded that though political legacy plays important role, almost all of the women politicians are there due to reservation.

The party wants to retain the seat and also the financial and other factors weigh in favour of women with political legacies.

“The most important difference between women politicians with legacy and without legacy is of opportunities to contest.

The group chose Shiv Sena as a model for research due to their long term hold on BMC and also due to the fact it also has the highest number of women contesting at BMC corporator level —32 out of 87 female corporators. “We found that these corporators got elected due to reservation. Only three didn’t have any political legacy,” she added.

However, most women hesitate to contest in open category. Women don’t have the same networking capabilities as men. Hence reservations have proven to be a boon for women.