The Maharashtra Congress has sent the highest, four, women MPs to the Lok Sabha followed by two from the BJP and one from the NCP(SP).
It's a far cry from the proposed 33 per cent reservation for women in legislatures or the Parliament, and the 2024 Lok Sabha election tally has come down by one - from 8 women elected in the 2019 LS polls - from the total 48 in the state.
A total of 17 women were fielded by the ruling Mahayuti of Shiv Sena-BJP-NCP and the Opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi of Congress-Shiv Sena (UBT)-NCP(SP). The Congress' show was the most impressive with 13 MPs elected, including 4, making it the single-largest party in the state, rebounding from two MPs (2014) and lone MP (2019).
The Congress' women MPs are Praniti Sushilkumar Shinde (Solapur-SC), Professor Varsha Gaikwad (Mumbai North Central), Pratibha Dhanorkar (Chandrapur) - all of whom are also sitting Congress MLAs - besides, Shobha Bachhav (Dhule). Women MPs elected from the BJP are Smita Wagh (Jalgaon) and Raksha N Khadse (Raver); and NCP (SP)'s Working President Supriya Sule (Baramati) - the last two being sitting MPs.
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In six LS seats, the women winners vanquished their male challengers from different parties barring Baramati which saw a rare 'nanad' (Supriya Sule) versus 'bhabhi' (Sunetra Ajit Pawar) high-profile tussle from the Pawar clan.
The SS(UBT) had fielded some women candidates but they lost out to the Mahayuti nominees, while a few sitting female MPs were dropped like Shiv Sena's Bhawana Gawali (Yavatmal-Washim), and BJP's Poonam Mahajan (Mumbai North Central) and Dr. Pritam Munde (Beed) who was replaced by her sister Pankaja Munde who was trounced. Interestingly, in Osmanabad, Sunetra Ajit Pawar's half-brother Padamsinh Patil's daughter-in-law Archana R Patil - the wife of BJP MLA Rana Jagjitsinh Patil - lost out to her cousin brother-in-law and SS(UBT)'s sitting MP Omprakash P Raje Nimbalkar.
Though the BJP's women MPs won on two seats, it also got a rude shock in Dindori (ST) where its sitting Union Minister Dr Bharti Pawar lost, as also Dr. Heena Gavit lost her bid for a hat-trick in Nandurbar. Meanwhile, all over India, 74 women were elected to the Lok Sabha, a tad lower than the figure of 78 in 2019, with highest 11 from West Bengal and seven each from Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra.
