Following the defeat of its Constitution amendment Bills in Parliament, the BJP sought to turn the early implementation of women’s reservation — which was linked to the delimitation exercise — into a major poll issue in West Bengal.

During his campaign rallies, Prime Minister Narendra Modi accused the TMC of not wanting more “daughters of Bengal” to become MLAs and MPs. After the BJP’s victory, he argued that the verdict amounted to a punishment for the TMC’s role in stalling the Bill.

An analysis of the election results, however, shows that despite women’s issues, including the R G Kar Medical College rape and murder case, dominating the electoral discourse, the strength of women MLAs in the new West Bengal Assembly has declined from around 15% in the outgoing House to 12.5%.

The TMC fielded more women candidates than the BJP, and the share of women candidates in the party’s overall tally was also higher than that of the BJP. The TMC fielded 52 women candidates. Since the party contested 291 seats, women accounted for nearly 18% of its total nominations. Fourteen of these candidates won, making women around 18% of the party’s total strength of 80 in the new Assembly.

The BJP, which contested all 294 seats, fielded 34 women candidates, accounting for about 12% of its total nominations. Twenty-three of them won, making women roughly 11% of the party’s total strength of 207 MLAs.

The BJP, which registered an overall strike rate of 70% in the election, had a strike rate of 68% among its women candidates. The TMC, whose overall strike rate stood at 27%, recorded exactly the same strike rate for its women nominees.

The broader implications

The figures suggest that women’s reservation or gender-related issues did not operate in a linear or standalone manner in the West Bengal election. Women candidates largely rose or fell with the broader tide rather than outperforming or underperforming because of their gender.

The broader implication suggests that in this election, “women’s issues” mattered more as a lens through which governance and power were judged than as a question of women’s representation alone. The R G Kar incident appears to have functioned less as a trigger for gender solidarity and more as a symbol of state failure. It appears voters did not necessarily distinguish between male and female candidates within a party; they judged the party itself.

The BJP, however, put considerable energy on the issues. Days after the defeat of the delimitation bill in Parliament, Modi, addressing a rally in Bankura, had said: “The TMC did not want more of Bengal’s daughters to become MLAs and MPs because the daughters of Bengal were challenging their Maha Jungle Raj.”

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The TMC had countered by arguing that it already provided greater representation to women in both the Assembly and Lok Sabha than any other party. It also sought to blunt the BJP’s pitch on women’s reservation by pointing out that the Bill had already been passed in the Lok Sabha with TMC support.

Yet, after the BJP’s landslide victory, Modi again linked the election verdict to the issue. Addressing party workers at the BJP headquarters, he said: “These anti-women parties prevented the amendment to the Nari Shakti Vandan Adhiniyam from being passed in Parliament. That is why I said a few days ago that parties opposing the women’s reservation Bill will have to face the wrath of women. Today, sisters and daughters have punished the Congress, TMC and DMK.”

In the outgoing West Bengal Assembly, there were 44 women MLAs, accounting for around 15% of the House strength. Of these, 38 belonged to the TMC and six to the BJP. Given that the TMC had 215 MLAs, women constituted around 18% of its strength. In the BJP, which had won 77 seats, women made up around 8% of its legislators.

In the newly elected Assembly, that number has fallen to 37, reducing women’s representation to 12.5% despite gender-related issues dominating the campaign discourse.

In these polls, other key parties also fielded a substantial number of women candidates. The Left fielded 40 women candidates, the Congress 39 and the BSP 24. None, however, managed to win.

In several constituencies, the contest was directly between women candidates. In Manbazar, all major parties in the fray — the TMC, BJP, Congress, CPI(M) and BSP — fielded women nominees. BJP candidate Mayna Murmu won the seat by more than 27,000 votes, defeating TMC’s Sandhya Tudu.