A fascinating story about patterns in women contesting elections appeared in The Hindu on 5 May. Headlined “Tickets for women expand female representation,” the report by Rukmini S. included several interesting nuggets of information. The most intriguing of these – and the main point of the story – is that “women are far more likely to contest seats where the incumbents are women” in elections to both the Lok Sabha and state legislative assemblies. The story highlights possible reasons for this trend. Unfortunately, the presentation of data in both the text and the accompanying graphic was rather confusing, at least to a reader as numerically challenged as I am.
Ammu Joseph
