SHILLONG, Feb 22 NNN: Meghalaya will go to poll on Saturday to elect its 60 members for the 9th term.
In over four decades there has been a tremendous change in the pattern of the election in the state. Despite of state being the only state where matrilineal system is a case in the country yet the women’s representation has not exceeded three seats. This is the election which has recorded the highest number of women candidates wherw out of 345 candidates there are 24 women in the fray whose fates to the house are to be decided by 7,44,299 males and 7,59, 608 women electorate.
The numbers of women voters in the state is 15308 more than that of male voters yet the number of contestant from the fare sex side is just 24.
This time it will be more different after the second delimitation of the Assembly constituency. The first delimitation had taken place soon after the first election after the eghalaya was curved out of Assam in 1972.
This year’s election has recorded highest number of candidates in the fray since the 1972 with the total number of 345 of which 24 are women candidates.
In 1972 there were total of 189 candidates of whom nine were women and one had got elected.
In 1978 there were 255 candidates had filed their nomination papers out of which seven were females and retained the number of seat in the house.
In 1983 happened to be all men house and the number of aspirants grew up to 309 of which eight were women and none of them made it to the house.
In 1988 the number of candidates went down to 268 of which three were women candidates and they had improved their seat to two in the house.
In 1993 there were 283 candidates of which seven were women but their number had gone down to one again.
The best year the women had in the state Assembly was in 1998 election where they had three representations in the house. Out of 294 candidates,14 were women of which three made it to the house.
In 2003, there were 319 candidates in the fray of which 14 were women and two of them had made it to the assembly.
In the last election in the 2008, out of 317 candidates there were 21 women in the fray of which only one made it to the house.
Read more / Original news source: http://manipur-mail.com/all-set-for-meghalaya-elections/
