BJP’s missed political opportunity with Women’s Reservation Bill for the 2024 General Election

Last Updated on October 20, 2023

BJP had a wonderful opportunity with this bill to gain a huge political mileage out of it. Though it is a historic bill, there is also huge uncertainty about when this is going to be implemented because it is linked to census and delimitation. This bill might send a message that the BJP is Pro-women and also not really committed to this idea. But, they could really take advantage of it for the 2024 general election if it came into force for the next year.

BJP is the largest political party in the world in terms of the number of members, even larger than the Communist Party in China. So, they have a massive membership and they are organized at the booth level. Combined with the charisma of Modi, the party can win many constituencies doesn’t matter who contests from BJP. This is exactly what happened in one of the assembly constituencies at the booth level in Karnataka.

BJP’s Pro-women Case in Karnataka

In the Sullia constituency for Karnataka assembly elections, BJP gave a ticket to a woman named Bhagirathi Murulya. She was a former member of Zilla and Taluk Panchayat. According to the affidavit, she was the poorest candidate to win in the assembly elections held in Karnataka filing her net worth to be around 30 Lakhs. This constituency – Sullia has been a stronghold of the BJP and in fact, the BJP held the constituency for 30 years. But, this time, the six-term sitting MLA, who was also a Minister, didn’t get the ticket because BJP knew very well that with the sheer power of the organization they could win no matter who got the ticket.

If the BJP passed the bill to come into force next year, it would give them the chance to have many Bhagirathi Murulyas. She was an executive member of the BJP Mahila Morcha in Karnataka. I am sure the BJP could find many women like her in the Mahila morcha to win the Lokasabha elections for the party. In my perspective, this is a missed opportunity. Women would come out in large numbers to elect BJP woman candidates as well as the party to power again. This could be a major party platform for the general election if the reservation would come into force starting from next year.

Not a hard and fast rule

It is not a hard and fast rule. There are many constituencies in Karnataka where it has backfired; not specifically for the idea that women getting BJP tickets to contest elections, but the sitting MLA/MP not getting the ticket. If there are anti-incumbency feelings against the sitting representative, then it might work effectively. Otherwise, It might end up in a disaster.

In the name of giving opportunity to others and especially, youngsters, the BJP applied a few rules arbitrarily to issue a ticket to someone different from the sitting MLA. One of them being older – The sitting MLA should not be older than 75 years of age. 2 Popular cases are Ex-CM of Karnataka Jagadish Shettar and Ex-DCM of Karnataka Laxman Savadi. BJP didn’t give them the ticket and they were replaced by someone else to contest on BJP ticket.

This made them rebel against the party and join Congress to contest on Congres ticket. Laxman Savadi won with a huge margin while six-term MLA Jagadish Shettar lost it. Since they were both from the Lingayat community, it sent a political message that the community had been ignored and sidelined. So, This resulted in a significant chunk of Lingayat’s votes going to Congress this time.

This would not be a huge issue because the seat is reserved for a woman. So, all the political parties must field a candidate who is a woman. Political parties would field a woman from the same caste as that of the man who contested in the last election. More importantly, if there was a man who represented the constituency, then he had to leave it to a woman because it had become a law and he could not rebel as it happened in Karnataka. This way parties will not suffer any anti-caste messaging by replacing the candidate with a woman.

Conclusion

BJP lost many opportunities with this bill. If they used it cleverly, they could make gains on multiple fronts. One obvious thing is they could mobilize women and get them to vote BJP in large numbers. They could bring not only political revolutions led by woman leadership of the BJP but also a social revolution to some extent by getting women of India to be more actively involved in Social-Economic issues. Now, with the bill only feeling like a distant or even mirage for some women, it failed to activate the women in India or the women voter base of BJP for that matter.