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Showing posts with the label Maharashtra Legislature

Assembly Review -- Confident Govt, jittery Oppn

  By Kartik Lokhande The first week of the winter session of State Legislature was marked by the usual drill of the Opposition parties raising the issue of farmers’ suicides, drought, compensation and the Government appealing to them to debate on the floor of the House. The only difference this time, however, was that the Government appeared to be more confident and hence more aggressive; while the Opposition was jittery. Every year, the entire State Legislature comprising the Government as well as the Opposition comes to Nagpur, the Second Capital of the State. Sadly, every year, the issue of either drought and farmers’ suicides or demand for statehood to Vidarbha dominates the Opposition charge. As a result, over the years, both these issues are getting diluted in public debate. This year, too, the Opposition parties – Congress and Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) – raised the issue of drought and forced adjournments demanding loan waiver and relief package to farmers, but...

Steady decline in number of women MLAs from Vidarbha

* The number has come down from six in 1957 to only one in 2014 By Kartik Lokhande  Maharashtra is considered to be a pioneer in women empowerment. It also is considered a pioneer in providing opportunities to women to contest elections through quota. However, when it comes to electing women candidates, the official records show that number of women MLAs has come down steadily. As per the official data, the number of women MLAs in Legislative Assembly was 24 in the term 1957-62. Prior to 1960, when Maharashtra state came into being, the Legislative Assembly comprised elected representatives from Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, and Karnataka. It had a total of 316 members of which 24 were women. Then, six of these 24 women MLAs were from Vidarbha region. These included Kokilabai Gawande (Melghat), Sushilabai Ingle (Amgaon), Malati Joshi (Amravati), Indirabai Kotambkar (Buldana), Kusumtai Korpe (Murtijapur), and Hirabai Salve (Morshi). After Maharashtra state came into be...