Exclusionary parliament

Major parties are running out of excuses to deny election tickets to marginalised.

A fair number of young candidates winning the first-past-the-post (FPTP) elections for the federal Parliament is something to be celebrated. The sad bit is that the incoming Parliament is still going to be homogenous, with low representation of historically marginalised groups like women, Dalits and Janajatis. Only one Dalit candidate has won under the FPTP system. A total of 16 Dalit candidates will be represented after factoring in PR seats. Thereafter, Dalits will comprise 5.8 percent of the 275-member federal lower house, even as they make up 13.8 percent of the national population. Likewise, just eight women have been elected through the FPTP system thus far. Forget that there are more women than men in the country; even the constitutional requirement of 33 percent women’s representation in Parliament is likely to be flouted by exploiting procedural loopholes. The total representation of Janajatis will be slightly better—with 24 percent representation against the national population of 38 percent—but again far from satisfactory.