In Haryana Polls, For Every 10 Men, There’s Only One Woman In Fray; Total Stands At 101 – News18

As Haryana gets set to vote on Saturday, of the 1,031 candidates contesting the polls, just 101 are women as against 930 men. The state, which has over 47% women voters, has seen poor participation from the gender over the years.

The 90-member Haryana assembly has 10 men in the fray this time on average for every woman in the fight, official data analysed by News18 shows.

In the elections held between 1967 and 2019, only 87 women made it to the house, including 50 elected since 1996. On an average, around seven women were elected in each election to the Haryana assembly. Only twice, in 2005 (11) and 2014 (13), the number of women elected to the house stood in double digits. The election of 2014 saw the highest number of women contesting the polls as well as being elected to the assembly.

There has been a consistent drop in women candidates since 2014. From 116 women that year, the election of 2019 saw just 108 women in the fray that dropped to 101 in 2024. Also, compared to 2014, fewer women entered the house in 2019.

Of the 1,031 candidates in the fray, 464 are independent. Of the 101 women contesting, 41 are contesting independently.

So far, including the current elections, 13,340 men and 676 women have contested the assembly polls in the state since 1967. Of the 676 women who fought the elections, 394 contested post 2009. It was only post 2014 that the number of women contesting in polls was more than 100, more than the total seats in the state, 90.

The state has 2.03 crore voters who will be able to exercise their franchise for the 15th Haryana Legislative Assembly on October 5 between 7 am and 6 pm. The state has 1,07,75,957 men and 95,77,926 women voters, along with 467 third gender voters. There are 5.24 lakh young voters aged 18 to 19, and 1.49 lakh voters with disabilities, of which 93,545 are male, 55,591 are female, and six are third gender.

The state has 2.31 lakh voters above the age of 85, comprising 89,940 men and 1.41 lakh women. Additionally, there are 8,821 voters aged over 100, including 3,283 men and 5,538 women. The total number of service voters is 1.09 lakh, including 1.04 lakh men and 4,791 women.