Nearly half of Gujarat civic poll candidates may be women

The unusually high number of applications received from women by both the BJP and the Congress for nomination in the upcoming civic polls, hints at a different kind of Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation (AMC) after the elections.

It seems that no matter which party comes to power in the civic body, nearly half the city's corporators will be women.

Leaders of both the BJP and the Congress say they have noticed an unprecedented enthusiasm among the fair sex for contesting the polls which will elect representatives to the AMC. In fact, every second application at the BJP office and every third at the office of the Congress is from a woman.
There are more than 1,200 women applicants from the BJP and some 700 from the Congress who want their party's ticket for any of the 64 seats (33%) in the city that are reserved for women.

The BJP has so far received a total of 2,500 applications, which means that women account for nearly 50% of its total probable candidates. Similarly, the Congress has received a total of 1,800 applications and women account for nearly 38% of the likely contestants from the party.

An interesting observation made by officials in both the parties is that most of the woman applicants are highly educated and engaged in respected professions.

They said that most women corporators in the current AMC were just puppets in the hands of their husbands and it was the husbands who took their decisions for them.

But this election, such corporators are unlikely to get tickets from either of the two main parties in the fray.  "The new women applicants are from various walks of life, and very educated," said Pankaj Shah, president of Ahmedabad city Congress.