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Women's share in electoral politics of Andhra Pradesh is all set to get a big boost thanks to the 33 per cent reservation quota whenever it comes in to effect.
Their number both in the Assembly and the Lok Sabha seats of the state is all set to register a dramatic rise from the worse condition so far. In what could be a depressing news for male politicians, at least 97 of the 294 seats in the Assembly will go to women, a three-fold rise from the present strength.
Similarly in the 42 Lok Sabha seats of the state, women will get one third seats or 14. With this the number of seats out of bound for the male politicians of general category will increase as already a sizeable number of seats are reserved for scheduled castes and tribes.
For instance, half of the 42 Lok Sabha seats will be in reserved quota. While 10 Lok Sabha seats are already reserved for the SCs and the STs and three of these seats for women, another 11 seats will be reserved for women under the new quota. Thus only 21 Lok Sabha seats will be in general category which any body irrespective of caste can contest.
Similarly in the Assembly of the 294 seats, 67 are already reserved for the SCs and STs. 22 of these seats are meant for women. Under the 33% quota another 75 seats will be reserved for women and their total number in the state assembly will go up to 97 and total number of reserved seats will increase to 142 and only 152 seats will be in general category.
If the Andhra Pradesh remains united, the next state assembly to be formed in 2014 will have at least 97 women members while there number in the first state assembly in 1962 was only 12. In 1967, the number of women was 16, in 1972 it was 27, in 1978 only 13, 1983 it was 14, 1985 it was 13, 1989 it was 18, 1994 it was 12 , in 1999 it went up to 35, and in 2004 it was 27.
However in the last elections of 2009, it increased to an all-time high of 36. They include 23 from Congress, ten from TDP, two from PRP and one from CPI. Interestingly as many as 21 of these women members are relatives of politicians and only 15 are fresh faces.
In the Lok Sabha out of the 42 members from Andhra Pradesh, four are women. They include D Purandeswari and P Lakshmi (both ministers at the center), Vijay Shanti (film actress) and Krupa Rani.